Re: hdparm-9.17 released, with experimental trim/wiper scripts for SSDs

[Robert Hancock <hancockrwd@gmail.com>]

On 07/29/2009 05:39 PM, Mark Lord wrote:
> Mark Lord wrote:
>> hdparm-9.17 is now available from sourceforge.net.
>>
>> New in this release:
>> - added wiper/ subdirectory with preliminary SSD-wiper (TRIM)
> ..
>
> Tejun: on a related note, my Sil-3132 PCIe SATA controller doesn't
> seem to like DSM/TRIM commands passing through it.
>
> [ 3479.010001] ata4.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x6
> frozen
> [ 3479.010008] ata4.00: irq_stat 0x00020002, protocol mismatch
> [ 3479.010019] ata4.00: cmd 06/01:01:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/e0 tag 0
> dma 512 out
> [ 3479.010021] res dc/33:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:dc/00 Emask 0x2 (HSM
> violation)
> [ 3479.010025] ata4.00: status: { Busy }
> [ 3479.010029] ata4.00: error: { IDNF }
> [ 3479.010041] ata4: hard resetting link
> [ 3481.193102] ata4: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 0)
> [ 3481.197043] ata4.00: configured for UDMA/100
> [ 3481.197082] ata4: EH complete
>
> I haven't taken time to dig further yet, but perhaps somebody here
> might know if they've hardcoded all of the ATA opcodes in silicon or
> something, and now get confused by DSM/TRIM ?
>
> I'll dig further into that later this summer.

Yeah, according to the datasheet "The SiI3124 will decode the 8-bit ATA
command at PRB offset 0x0a and automatically execute the default 
protocol for the command. In certain cases it might be desirable to 
specify a non-default protocol to be used, such as with vendor specific 
device commands." The DSM command seems to be DMA data-out and the chip 
likely doesn't know that command. I have to wonder why they decided to 
use that design instead of just making the driver indicate the protocol 
explicitly. In any case, it looks like the driver needs code to override 
the protocol setting for this command. (Maybe we should just set the 
protocol override for what we know the command is supposed to be in all 
cases?)

Sil311x will have the same problem. The solution there seems to be to 
execute a vendor-specific command to tell the controller what protocol 
that command code uses. Some other controllers may have similar issues 
if they are parsing the ATA command codes.. it's possible that some of 
them might not support DSM/TRIM commands properly.