Erasable Disk Drives

This section presents the requirements for erasable disk drives provided with a server system or designed for use with Windows NT Server. This category includes 3.5-inch, 5.25-inch, and 12-inch magneto-optical or phase-change drives and media. It does not include CD, CD-R, CD-Rewritable, and DVD drives or media.

SCSI erasable drives support SCSI commands

Required

The following commands or features must be supported by the device’s driver:

• Erase (2C): full side and selected block erase
  
  
• Format requirements reported with Format command
  
  
• Mode Select: write cache disable
  
  
• Mode Sense: total spare blocks available, write protect status
  
  
• Prevent/Allow Medium Removal, Start/Stop Unit
  
  
• Read (28), Verify (2F)
  
  
• Reassign Blocks, Read Defect Data
  
  
• Reserve, Release
  
  
• Seek (SCSI CDB Opcode – 2B)
  
  
• Test Unit Ready, Request Sense, Read Capacity, Inquiry
  
  
• Write (2A), Write and Verify (2E)
  
  
• Write without pre-erase, for erasable optical only

Recommended: Inquiry with support for reporting serial number or other unique unit ID should be supported by the device’s driver.