[CentOS] Any experience with eSATA and port multiplier...?

Fri Feb 17 11:47:11 UTC 2012
John Doe <jdmls at yahoo.com>

Hey,

just bought an eSATA/USB dual drive docking station and my CentOS 5 can only see one drive at a time...
Any one knows if there are specific parameters to set somewhere?
Or do I need a more recent kernel (like upgrading to CentOS 6?)

The docking is a Sharkoon Quickport Duo v2 + 2 drives + 1 eSATA cable...
http://www.sharkoon.com/?q=en/content/sata-quickport-duo-v2
The eSATA controller is an HighPpoint PciE 2 ports combo eSATA/USB with (supposedly) port-multiplier support
Apparently based on an Silicon image Sil 3132
Seems like the port multiplier part does not work correctly...

kernel: ata7: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 10)
kernel: ata7.15: Port Multiplier 1.1, 0x197b:0x2352 r0, 2 ports, feat 0x0/0x0
kernel: ata7.15: Asynchronous notification not supported, hotplug won't
kernel:          work on fan-out ports. Use warm-plug instead.
kernel: ata7.00: hard resetting link

The logs are full of "hard resetting link", "softreset failed" and other "failed to reset PMP, giving up"


I did not try to reboot yet...  Would be a pain to have to reboot every time I need to plug drives.  :/


I am not the only one...
http://linux.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/SuSE/2011-10/msg00055.html
He has a kernel 2.6.37.6-0.7 and it still fails so I am wondering if upgrading to CentOS 6.x would help at all...


Thx,
JD