A USB enclosure that supports SCSI-ATA-Passthru (cheap!)

[Mark Lord <liml@rtr.ca>]

I believe this is of possible interest to others here:

Most newer USB enclosures now support SCSI STOP/START commands.

But.. the Western Digital 2.5" mobile USB2 enclosures (SATA inside)
appear to also support the SCSI-ATA-Command-Passthru protocol.
These are the first ones I have seen here that do this.

So, things like "hdparm -I /dev/sdb" work without fuss on an
external USB drive when used with these enclosures.
As does setting automatic spin-down with "hdparm -S".

And as an added bonus, they're rather cheaply priced with drive included.

On the downside, smartctl does not work with the one I have here,
complaining thusly:

> $ smartctl -a  -T permissive -T permissive /dev/sdb
> smartctl version 5.38 [i686-pc-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-8 Bruce Allen
> Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/
> 
> Device: WD       823AS  External  Version: 1.04
> scsiModePageOffset: response length too short, resp_len=4 offset=4 bd_len=0
> >> Terminate command early due to bad response to IEC mode page
> 
> Error Counter logging not supported
> scsiModePageOffset: response length too short, resp_len=4 offset=4 bd_len=0
> Device does not support Self Test logging


Regardless, these devices are commonly available at Costco and other
discount retailers.  Mine came with a 250GB drive inside, and has
model number WS2500XMS-00 on the outside.  I hope to pick up another
with a 320GB drive soon-ish, and see if it also has passthru.

Model:  WD-250XMS-00 (with 250GB drive inside, removeable).
USB info:  1058:0702 Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
Bridge chip by InitIO:  INIC-1606L

Cheers