Re: SMART to USB/sata dock in 2.6.27-rc5 doesn't work

[Mark Lord <liml@rtr.ca>]

Tejun Heo wrote:
> David Greaves wrote:
>> I just bought a usb/sata adapter like this:
>>   http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/drives/a7ea/?cpg=ab
>> lsusb -v is below
>>
>> Works OK as a hot-plug SATA disk so I can check what's on that old disk in the
>> corner; but smartctl doesn't work so I can't see if it has any errors, run
>> selftests etc.
>>
>> Kernel is 2.6.27-rc5 (I've also tried older kernels)
>>
>> I plugged a previously zeroed drive in and...
>>
>> root@ash:~ # smartctl -a /dev/sde
>> smartctl version 5.38 [i686-pc-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-8 Bruce Allen
>> Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/
>>
>> Device: ST332062 0AS              Version:
>> Device type: disk
>> Local Time is: Thu Oct  9 21:38:16 2008 BST
>> Device supports SMART and is Enabled
>> Temperature Warning Disabled or Not Supported
>> SMART Health Status: OK
>>
>> Error Counter logging not supported
>> Device does not support Self Test logging
> 
> The USB bridge should support SAT (SCSI-ATA translation) and many
> don't.  Nothing much can be done about it.  The hardware just don't know
> how to do it.
..

That may be true, or not.  Try "hdparm -I /dev/sde" on it.
If that *works*, then the USB interface *does* support SAT!

Many, many new USB enclosures now have the modern InitIO bridge chips with SAT.

Cheers