Difference between Controller & Host Controller

rahulkhajuria

Question 1 ) What is the Difference between a Controller , Adapter & Host Controller ?

Question 2) Also what is a Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller ?

Question 3) I just learnt that the SMART attributes of the Hard Disk are stored in the IDE Controller . I fail to understand how the attributes can be stored there when the controller is nothing but an Integrated Circuit or bunch of Integrated Circuits . Please Explain .

rcgldr

An adapter converts one type of interface to another, such as PCI Express bus to SCSI, or pehaps ethernet to SCSI. A controller is just a component in a device that controls some aspect of the device. The component that deals with an interface, such as IDE or SATA is an example of a controller. A host controller is a controller in the "host" system, as opposed to a "device" controller which is in the device, such as a hard drive.

Just a generic controller. Microsoft reference:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...bedded.5).aspx

The information is not stored in the IDE specific part of the controller. On some PC's, and/or RAID adapter controllers, the smart attribute history is stored in some type of non-volatile ram. The information is mostly used to warn the user that hard drive should be replaced.