Re: Enable CONFIG_USB_SUSPEND by default or some mobile HD can't be unplugged safely

Mark Lord
2009-01-02T15:49:47Z

Mark Lord wrote:
> Tino Keitel wrote:
>> On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 00:03:43 +0800, Yan Li wrote:
>>> Hello List,
>>>
>>> By default CONFIG_USB_SUSPEND is not enabled and today I got bite by
>>> this when I got a new WDC My Book hard drive. I have no way to unplug
>>> it safely, according to it's manual, with a kernel that doesn't have
>>> CONFIG_USB_SUSPEND=y.
>>>
>>> On it's manual read "you should unplug and remove the device only when
>>> the light is off." On Linux unmounting it won't turn it's light off
>>> and I can feel it's motor is still running. The only way to unplug it
>>> properly on a Linux system, as to my knowledge, is to echo `suspend'
>>> to `/sys/bus/usb/devices/$DEV/power/level'. And one has to have
>>> CONFIG_USB_SUSPEND=y to do this.
>>
>> With a WD My Passport drive (2,5"), I need to use sg_start --stop --pc=3
>> to stop the disk before unplugging it. Maybe this works with your
>> drive, too. This is also required by some Firewire hard disks. Maybe
>> the eject command should be extended to use this method, as it is used
>> also by HAL to eject hotplug devices.
> ..
>
> Incidently, the WD Passport drives support SG_IO,
> so things like hdparm and smartctl can work with them as well.
..

s/SG_IO/SG_IO+SAT/