[CentOS] Smartctl & SATA

I've just installed my first system with a SATA drive and I've noticed that smartctl isn't supported under libata

According to the smartmontools home page, SATA will require a patch that is still in development. http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6983#comment-126714

"The patch is still under development and it is probably best to make sure that the disk is idle before trying smartmontools." Isn't a glowing endorsement, besides the system only has 1 hard drive.

Under CentOS 4.1 # rpm -qa | grep kernel kernel-2.6.9-5.0.3.EL kernel-utils-2.4-13.1.48

I also tried the CentOS 4.2 kernel (and kernel-utils) with similar results. # rpm -qa | grep kernel kernel-2.6.9-22.EL kernel-utils-2.4-13.1.69

Thanks, Mark