Re: [PATCHSET #upstream-fixes] libata: improve flaky link handling

[Mark Lord <liml@rtr.ca>]

Greg Freemyer wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 6:31 AM, Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org> wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> This patchset is kicked off by kernel bz#9913 which reports hot
>> plugging and general detection problems with WD My Book drives.  WD
>> was kind enough to provide me with these drives and I played quite a
>> bit with a few controllers and weird cabling configurations including
>> long cables and several genders.
>>
>> It was surprisingly easy to trigger link layer problems.  eSATA ports
>> often go through extra cable and gender.  eSATA cables tend to be
>> longer than internal ones and as the cables are much stiffer touching
>> or moving the cable can easily cause enough wiggle at the connectors
>> to cause temporary transmission problems and being outside, it's much
>> more likely to be moved.
>>
>> So, with abundant link quality problems, the following problems have
>> been identified.
> Tejun,
> 
> This looks like an important patchset for those of us that use eSata.
> Any chance these can get into the opensuse 11.1 kernels?  Or lacking
> that, the os factory kernels?
..

Based on experience here, I'd say the problem isn't terribly widespread
beyond the specific vendor Tejun identified.  I have several eSATA setups
at hand here, and never see flaky link behaviour on them.

Cheers