USB Mass Storage Class Devices
|
|
The contents here were originally located on the USB entry but have been moved here to provide minimal information until replaced with more details.
Contents |
Subclasses
Types
CBI
"Control/Bulk/Interrupt (CBI) transport is only for full-speed floppy disk drives. It will not be used in conjunction with LSDFS, and it's use in ANY new design id discouraged." - USB MSC specification.
BBB
Bulk Only (BBB)
Bulk Only Mass Storage Devices are the most common type of USB storage device, and they include most USB thumb drives, hard drives, CD, DVD and Blu-ray drives as well. They normally use the SCSI Command Set, but the USB Mass Storage specifications allow devices to use other command sets as well.
The USB Mass Storage Class adds two additional USB commands to the default control endpoint to allow the system to reset the mass storage device, and to get the number of "logical" devices supported by the physical mass storage device.
The SCSI Command block is encapsulated in a "Command Block Wrapper" (CBW), which contains information about the length of the command, the direction, the logical unit to send the command to, and a unique identifier that will be returned in the response from the device that can be used to match up the request with the response by the host. The Command Block Wrapper is sent to the device using the first Out direction, Block only endpoint on the interface, before any data is sent to or received from the device. Then, a final "Command Status Wrapper" (CSW) is sent to the host by the device that contains the results of the operation.
Command Block Wrapper
| Offset (Hex) | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 0x00 | int32 | Signature (0x43425355) |
| 0x04 | int32 | Tag (Transaction Unique Identifier) |
| 0x08 | int32 | Length |
| 0x0c | byte | Direction (0x00 = ToDevice, 0x80 = ToHost) |
| 0x0d | byte | Logical Unit Number |
| 0x0e | byte | Command Length |
| 0x0f | byte[16] | Command Data |
Command Status Wrapper
| Offset (Hex) | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 0x00 | int32 | Signature (0x53425355) |
| 0x04 | int32 | Tag (Copied From CBW) |
| 0x08 | int32 | Residue (Difference Between CBW Length And Actual Length) |
| 0x0c | byte | Status (0x00 = Success, 0x01 = Failed, 0x02 = Phase Error) |
UFI
LSDFS
Locakable Storage Devices Feature Specification (LSD FS)
Booting
Booting off of a USB flash disk
If the BIOS supports it is it as simple as selecting USB-FDD in the boot order and putting a simple bootloader (grub might do, I rolled my own) into the first 512 bytes of the device. The BIOS will handle all the fancy PCI / USB stuff via int 0x13. Note that there is no need for any specific filesystem or partitions (which means you can just "dd" a 2.2 linux kernel (which used to contain a simple floppy loader) to /dev/sda and it will easily come up).
See Also
Forum Topics
- USB stick - discusses the feasability of booting from an USB memory stick
Specifications
- Class specifications - all the class spsecifications. ever.
- General mass storage specification - the mass storage overview.
- Bulk-Only mass storage specification - details for bulk-only (BBB) devices.
- CBI specification
- UFI specification
- Bootability specification
