Arch Linux

AndyRTR

Developer

From: Magdeburg/Germany

Registered: 2005-10-07

Posts: 1,641

eSATA hotplug supported?

I'm thinking about a new eSATA case for a SATA hard disc for faster backups. Does anybody know if hotplug is supported by the recent kernel?

this one is very cheap here and should have somewhat Jmicron chip on it.

Any other cases known to work well?

Romashka

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2005-12-07

Posts: 1,054

Re: eSATA hotplug supported?

I've asked the same question here some time ago, but noone replied.
So only googling or trying can give answer, I think.
I think when eSATA hotplug is supported, then SATA hotplug too (all these different SATA specs and names are confusing, but Barracuda 7200.9/.10 supports SATA 2.5 which means hotplug too).

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to live is to die

iphitus

Forum Fellow

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-10-09

Posts: 4,927

Re: eSATA hotplug supported?

http://linux-ata.org/driver-status.html

have a look around there and see if there's anything relevant.

Romashka

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2005-12-07

Posts: 1,054

Re: eSATA hotplug supported?

Oops, I forgot about that page. I've seen it some time ago.
Anyone tried how SATA hotplug works in real word?

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to live is to die

dafart

Member

Registered: 2007-01-06

Posts: 21

Re: eSATA hotplug supported?

asked about the same here a while ago, without an answer unfortunatly. Think I have the proper kernel modules and stuff, unplugging the drive goes fine, replugging gives a system freeze without error message in any log..
too bad
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=28586

mrjwalsh

Member

Registered: 2007-01-08

Posts: 52

Re: eSATA hotplug supported?

Hi just having a read of this post and the whole hot swapping issue; I have two SATA II drives in basic hot swap bays; I found a way to 'trick' the system into hot plugging; any gurus out there please tell me if this is bad for the drives if it is; but so far I have not run into a single problem.

I use the package hdparm. (pacman -S hdparm) I know this is a package thats meant to be used with IDE drives but it seems to work fine with me, it essentially lets you control basic hardware functions of the drive making it safe to unplug and plug back in with your machine never thinking the drive was gone. Heres the steps.

Plug in your drive(s), then turn your machine on so the machine detects the drives.
You can mount as you would normally, once your ready to unplug umount the drives.
Run the command hdparm -Y /dev/sdX  this completely turns off and locks the drive so it's safe for removal, but leaves it in mtab.
Remove the drive
When you want to plug it back in just do so and the process of plugging it back in will power it back on, ready to be mounted again; repeat the steps (besides the turning on machine part) again again and again...

Sorry for the long post but I know how frustrating it is NOT to have hot swap working when you have hot swap bays, it took me ages to find a work around. Good luck, hopefully it works for you.

zatricky

Member

From: Stockholm

Registered: 2008-09-03

Posts: 55

Website

Re: eSATA hotplug supported?

Sorry to bring up a very old thread - Is esata/hotswap support still a problem in Arch?

I found a relevant mini-howto at Ubuntu Forums: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=907124

It recommends using scsiadd (available in AUR) to detect the external disks - I just got Arch to pick up my external disk with it. I haven't experimented much yet so if I come into problems I'll update here.

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pacman russian roulette: yes | pacman -Rcs $(pacman -Q | LANG=C sort -R | head -n $((RANDOM % 10)))
(yes, I know its broken)

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: eSATA hotplug supported?

zatricky - start a new thread please. See here for details.

Closed.