SATA hotplug and AHCI

[Bruce M. Simpson]

Andrey V. Elsukov wrote:
> ...
> Linux's libata driver has a quirk for VIA AHCI:
>
> /* vt8251 doesn't clear BSY on signature FIS reception,
>  * request follow-up softreset.
>  */
>
> If i right understand it issues softreset for VIA controllers just
> after hardreset. And after softreset it is trying to read device 
> signature.
>
> FreeBSD CURRENT has similar code, but it is disabled by default.
> You can try install CURRENT and rebuild ata_ahci driver with AHCI_PM 
> option.
> May be it will help..
>

I'm glad this came up. When I asked a few weeks ago about SATA Hotplug 
support, I was asking because of a board with a VIA SATA controller I 
was planning to add drives too, on a JBOD basis.

Perhaps this hack can be backported to 7.x to actually make VIA 
controllers useful?

P.S. VIA's SATA RAID BIOS is a pile of poop, don't bother using VIA for 
RAID.

cheers
BMS