Smartctl and ahci

[Jeremy Chadwick]

On Mon, Dec 07, 2009 at 11:06:35AM +0100, Johan Hendriks wrote:
> Hello all
> 
> I am running FreeBSD 8_Stable, and i started to use the ahci driver, all
> is fine 
> 
> All my drives are now detected as ada[0-9]
> 
> But when i run smartctl it give me the following message:
> {snip}

You won't be able to use smartctl with ahci.ko.  The AHCI->CAM layer
ends up making a mess of this, and smartctl doesn't know what to do; I
don't know if this is smartctl's fault or the AHCI->CAM layer's fault.

Forcing ATA type using the --device or -d flag does not work.

Your best bet is to use ataahci.ko instead, which will result in your
disks showing up as the classic /dev/adX type.  There are drawbacks to
this choice (lack of NCQ being the main one), but SMART monitoring will
be available.  I consider SMART more important than NCQ, but others may
feel the opposite.

Someone familiar with this new infrastructure will need to reach out to
Bruce Allen and work with him to get smartctl working with the new
AHCI->CAM interface.

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                   jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                       http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                  Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.              PGP: 4BD6C0CB |