esata woes

[weltall]

As the guruplug was my first esata device i bought an hd enclosure with usb and esata support, as i just received it i put in the 500gb hd i had around and plugged the 5vdc from the usb port (tried also with using the power from another device) and the esata cable but... nothing happens... nothing on the dmesg nothing anywhere. I'm still using the original kernel shipped with it with the original uboot and just cp -pr ed the filesystem from the nand to an sd card and changed the boot env in order to load from it, plus the hd works fine from usb with the guruplug or a pc. Unfortunately i don't have currently the possibility to test it on another esata device.
What do you think could be the problem? not that even in lshw i don't see a sata controller in the device (i don't know if it's expected or not) might i be doing something wrong? i also tried rebooting with the device powered on without results. I've also tried a different esata cable and i can hear the hd spinning.
thanks in advance

[NewIT_Marcus]

To verify your eSATA device is visible:

in U-Boot:

Code:

ide reset

From linux terminal:

Code:

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

It is NOT hot-swappable. You should connect the plug to your eSATA drive, power up the drive, and then the Sheevaplug.

[sfzhi]

It is NOT hot-swappable.

Oh, nice to know. Looks like this is one more thing missing from Globalscale's advertisement.

[weltall]

now this is weird now the disk works doing exactly nothing i just hooked it again O_O but even when hot plugged (btw ide reset is not in the shipped uboot with the guruplug)

scsi2 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
ata1: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl F300)
ata1.00: ATA-8: WDC WD5000BEVT-00ZAT0, 01.01A01, max UDMA/133
ata1.00: 976773168 sectors, multi 0: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32)
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133
scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      WDC WD5000BEVT-0 01.0 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
sd 0:0:0:0: [sdc] 976773168 512-byte logical blocks: (500 GB/465 GiB)
sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
sd 0:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
sd 0:0:0:0: [sdc] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
 sdc:
ata1.00: exception Emask 0x10 SAct 0x1 SErr 0x180000 action 0x6 frozen
ata1.00: edma_err_cause=00000020 pp_flags=00000003, SError=00180000
ata1: SError: { 10B8B Dispar }
ata1.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED
ata1.00: cmd 60/08:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/40 tag 0 ncq 4096 in
         res 40/00:04:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/40 Emask 0x10 (ATA bus error)
ata1.00: status: { DRDY }
ata1: hard resetting link
ata1: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl F300)
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133
ata1: EH complete
 unknown partition table
sd 0:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI disk

it seems consistant to operate like this now even if i remove the cable and put it back. but the link is just 1,5gbps?

[NewIT_Marcus]

It is NOT hot-swappable.

Oh, nice to know. Looks like this is one more thing missing from Globalscale's advertisement.

Well, if one assumes that the default characteristic is that an eSATA connection is not hot-swappable, it's not necessary to declare it. I don't know if it's reasonable to make that assumption, but I'm happy to clarify it in case anyone is in any doubt.

[NewIT_Marcus]

but the link is just 1,5gbps?

Yes, I believe that is correct.

[unaiur]

Quoted from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#Hotplug):

The Serial ATA Spec, includes logic for SATA device hotplugging. Devices and motherboards that meet the interoperability spec are capable of hot plugging

Quoted from the SATA consortium (http://www.sata-io.org/technology/esata.asp):

eSATA provides more performance than existing solutions and is hot pluggable.

It is NOT hot-swappable.

Oh, nice to know. Looks like this is one more thing missing from Globalscale's advertisement.

Well, if one assumes that the default characteristic is that an eSATA connection is not hot-swappable, it's not necessary to declare it. I don't know if it's reasonable to make that assumption, but I'm happy to clarify it in case anyone is in any doubt.

[NewIT_Marcus]

Point taken. However, I think that this wouldn't be the first time I've used an "eSATA" connection that isn't hot-swappable.

[briaeros007]

Point taken. However, I think that this wouldn't be the first time I've used an "eSATA" connection that isn't hot-swappable.

Personally, i've never seen one. E-sata stand for "external sata", and for an "external" connection, the hotplug is mandatory, imho. (We don't speak about an internal sata port, but an "e-sata").

Have anyone seen an usb port not hot-swappable ?

[Confusticated]

Is the chipset circuitry SATA or eSATA (they are not the same thing) ?
Should Globalscale have put a SATA connector on the outside of the box (instead of eSata) ?
Does anybody nowadays bother reading the available documentation ?
Are plug computer users more interested in whinging or sharing information and developing ?
How many people who bought a plug expect it to be an 'user end product' ?
If this is a rant, would it make more or less impact if directed at a brick wall ?

[henk55]

Inside the Marvell doc. on page 89 describes for the 88F6281,

* SATA II Device Hot-Swap compliant

So the GuruPlug has eSata (hot-swap compliant)

[Confusticated]

The document I referenced "88F6281-004" dated "2/09" disagrees!
Can we believe anything we read ?
Should we believe everything we read ?

[sfzhi]

The document I referenced "88F6281-004" dated "2/09" disagrees!

How exactly does it disagree?

[Confusticated]

Quote from the Product Overview document: "Two SATA 2.0 ports with integrated PHYs" (please Marvell don't sue me for breach of copyright)
Is this in itself correct ?
Are they not in actual fact SATA I ?
Are 'Product Overview' documents written by salesmen ?
Are 'Product Specification' documents written by technicians ?
What does the Product Specification document say ?

[simonizer]

Hotplugging the eSATA drives works fine for me ...