AHCI(4)                                                    BSD Kernel Interfaces Manual                                                    AHCI(4)

NAME

     ahci -- Serial ATA Advanced Host Controller Interface driver

SYNOPSIS

     To compile this driver into the kernel, place the following lines in your kernel configuration file:

           device pci
           device scbus
           device ahci

     Alternatively, to load the driver as a module at boot time, place the following line in loader.conf(5):

           ahci_load="YES"

     The following tunables are settable from the loader(8):

     hint.ahci.X.msi
     controls Message Signaled Interrupts (MSI) usage by the specified controller
     0             MSI disabled;
     1             single MSI vector used, if supported (default);
     2             multiple MSI vectors used, if supported;

     hint.ahci.X.ccc
     controls Command Completion Coalescing (CCC) usage by the specified controller.  Non-zero value enables CCC and defines maximum time (in ms),
     request can wait for interrupt, if there are some more requests present on controller queue.  CCC reduces number of context switches on sys-
     tems with many parallel requests, but it can decrease disk performance on some workloads due to additional command latency.

     hint.ahcich.X.pm_level
     controls SATA interface Power Management for the specified channel, allowing some power to be saved at the cost of additional command
     latency.  Possible values:
     0             interface Power Management is disabled (default);
     1             device is allowed to initiate PM state change, host is passive;
     2             host initiates PARTIAL PM state transition every time port becomes idle;
     3             host initiates SLUMBER PM state transition every time port becomes idle.
     4             driver initiates PARTIAL PM state transition 1ms after port becomes idle;
     5             driver initiates SLUMBER PM state transition 125ms after port becomes idle.
     Some controllers, such as ICH8, do not implement modes 2 and 3 with NCQ used.  Because of artificial entering latency, performance degrada-
     tion in modes 4 and 5 is much smaller then in modes 2 and 3.

     Note that interface Power Management is not compatible with device presence detection.  A manual bus reset is needed on device hot-plug.

     hint.ahcich.X.sata_rev
     setting to nonzero value limits maximum SATA revision (speed).  Values 1, 2 and 3 are respectively 1.5, 3 and 6Gbps.

DESCRIPTION

     This driver provides the CAM(4) subsystem with native access to the SATA ports of AHCI-compatible controllers.  Each SATA port found is rep-
     resented to CAM as a separate bus with one target, or, if HBA supports Port Multipliers, 16 targets.  Most of the bus-management details are
     handled by the SATA-specific transport of CAM.  Connected ATA disks are handled by the ATA protocol disk peripheral driver ada(4).  ATAPI
     devices are handled by the SCSI protocol peripheral drivers cd(4), da(4), sa(4), etc.

     Driver features include support for Serial ATA and ATAPI devices, Port Multipliers (including FIS-based switching, when supported), hardware
     command queues (up to 32 commands per port), Native Command Queuing, SATA interface Power Management, device hot-plug and Message Signaled
     Interrupts.

     AHCI hardware is also supported by ataahci driver from ata(4) subsystem.  If both drivers are loaded at the same time, this one will be given
     precedence as the more functional of the two.

HARDWARE

     The ahci driver supports AHCI compatible controllers having PCI class 1 (mass storage), subclass 6 (SATA) and programming interface 1 (AHCI).

     Also, in cooperation with atamarvell and atajmicron drivers of ata(4), it supports AHCI part of legacy-PATA + AHCI-SATA combined controllers,
     such as JMicron JMB36x and Marvell 88SX61xx.

SEE ALSO

     ada(4), ata(4), cam(4), cd(4), da(4), sa(4)

HISTORY

     The ahci driver first appeared in FreeBSD 8.0.

AUTHORS

     Alexander Motin <mav@FreeBSD.org>.

BSD                                                              January 28, 2010                                                              BSD