Difference Between a 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 .

 

[sunny9874704905]

In computer hardware, a host controller, host adapter, or host bus adapter (HBA) connects a host system (the computer) to other network and storage devices. The terms are primarily used to refer to devices for connecting SCSI, Fibre Channel and eSATA devices, but devices for connecting to IDE, Ethernet, FireWire, USB and other systems may also be called host adapters. Recently, the advent of iSCSI and Fibre Channel over Ethernet has brought about Ethernet HBAs, which are different from Ethernet NICs in that they include TCP Offload Engines. There are also converged HBAs that support both Ethernet and Fibre Channel.