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Hard disk device name
In current Debian versions
All (S)ATA and SCSI disks are called /dev/sda, /dev/sdb and so on.
It is still possible to influence the naming by the use of udev rules, see below.
In Debian Lenny
The disks are named according to rules defined in /etc/udev/rules.d
The default udev rules define the following naming:
If you have IDE Hard disks:
/dev/hda is IDE primary main (equivalent to c: in Windows) /dev/hdb is IDE primary subordinate (equivalent to d: and so on)
The exception is if you have a CDROM or DVDROMs attached to the first IDE controller, those could be named as /dev/hda.
If your hard disk is attached to a second IDE controller, it will be named /dev/hdc or /dev/hdd as follows:
/dev/hdc is IDE secondary main /dev/hdd is IDE secondary subordinate
Nowadays, with SATA controllers, the drive may be named as /dev/hde, /dev/hdf etc. Sometimes the IDE disks are /dev/sda (eg SiI RAID capable controller).
If you have SCSI hard disks, Linux names them as /dev/sda, /dev/sdb etc.
Influence hard disk naming
Disk naming is done by udev.
You can define udev rules of your own to achieve completely different naming, for example persistent disk names according to disk bay position.
Working with drive parameters
hdparm is a tool for query and adjustment of settings for SATA and IDE drives. For example you can define the idle time after which a hard disk switches off the motor.
Testing a Harddisk
e2fsprogs (using the badblocks command)
Benchmarking a Disk
See also
References
Hard disk naming
Dodin, Jean-Daniel (Revision V0.1, 2009): Partitions-Mass-Storage-Definitions-Naming-HOWTO”. Chapter 5: Drive Naming in Linux, The Linux Documentation Project
Udev
Unnikrishnan: Udev: Introduction to Device Management In Modern Linux System, published in 2009 on Linux.com
Hdparm
hdparm(8) manual page