[SGVLUG] eSATA on Linux

[Claude Felizardo]

Is hot plugging supported with eSATA devices on Linux?

I have a WD 500 GB SATA drive in an enclosure with probably a bridge
controller (it supports both PATA and SATA drives and has both USB 2.0
or eSATA connectors on the outside with a switch for SATA or USB mode)
connected to a generic PCI host adapter.

I had picked up the drive, enclosure and SATA card to backup my file
server but for some reason Linux won't recognize the card.  Works fine
in a 3 year old Dell, same distro, same kernel.   lspci identifies it
as follows:

02:00.0 Mass storage controller: Silicon Image, Inc. SiI 3512
[SATALink/SATARaid] Serial ATA Controller (rev 01)

I've noticed that when I boot Linux, 2.6.17-14mdv, the drive is not
recognized unless the external drive is powered on before I boot.  I
also get kernel errors if I power down or disconnect the eSATA cable
before shutting down.  I'm pretty sure I had unmounted the drive, will
need to try again.

If I use the USB interface, I can unplug and reconnect all I want so
long as I mount/umount appropriately but it's unbelievably slower.  In
fact, backups are faster using another machine and rsync'ing over the
network than using the USB interface directly on the server.

It's a pretty old motherboard.  Don't remember when I got it but it's
got a PIII-450.  According to wikipedia, the PIII came out in 1999 and
the PCI 2.1 spec was released in 1995.  I think it's an Abit BE6.  Is
it possible that the new card isn't compatible with the motherboard?
It's a 440 BX chipset with an extra set of IDE ports so maybe that's
interfering with the card?  Here's the output of lspci on the server:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX
Host bridge (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX AGP
bridge (rev 03)
00:07.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 02)
00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01)
00:07.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 01)
00:07.3 Bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 02)
00:09.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1
Controller (rev 50)
00:09.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1
Controller (rev 50)
00:09.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 51)
00:0d.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
00:0f.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage XL (rev 27)
00:11.0 Serial controller: Titan Electronics Inc VScom 400H 4 port
serial adaptor
00:11.1 Communication controller: Titan Electronics Inc Unknown device ffff
00:13.0 Mass storage controller: Triones Technologies, Inc.
HPT366/368/370/370A/372/372N (rev 01)
00:13.1 Mass storage controller: Triones Technologies, Inc.
HPT366/368/370/370A/372/372N (rev 01)

The HPT366 devices provide two additional IDE ports on the motherboard
for a total of 4 drives with no channel sharing - perfect for software
RAID.

Oh rats, looks like I have an older USB card in there, I'll have to
verify I'm plugging the drive into the correct port.  That could
explain the slow USB xfer but I'd prefer to get the SATA card working
in the server.  Any suggestions?

claude