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What is the current status of eSATA hotplugging in Ubuntu (automounting, device node setup etc.)

Asked by Aaron Whitehouse

Hello all,

I've been Googling for some time and am not a lot closer than when I started. Hopefully somebody here can clear the issue up or at least point me in the right direction. I will track anything that I find out here, to try to give other Googlers a valuable resource. I am using Mythbuntu 9.10 (which is essentially Xubuntu 9.10).

eSATA (or SATA) supports hotplugging if the SATA controller supports AHCI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#Hotplug). I understand that my Gigabyte MA78GM-S2H (AMD 780G) motherboard supports AHCI (though it unhelpfully isn't mentioned in the manual or on the website) and should therefore support (e)SATA hotplugging.
$ lspci
[...]
00:11.0 SATA controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 SATA Controller [AHCI mode]

I have an external harddrive that supports USB and eSATA. When I plug it in by USB, /dev/sdb1 etc. appear in /dev/ and an icon appears on my desktop to access that volume. As much as possible, I would ideally like for eSATA to work the same way (but much faster).

Currently, when I plug in my external HDD (after the machine has booted), cat /proc/partitions shows no additional partitions, there are no additional /dev/ nodes and nothing appears on the desktop. I cannot see anything in dmesg or kern.log.

If I plug it in before I boot, the device shows up in GSmartControl, adds /dev/ nodes and I can access it after manually mounting it (sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /media/sdb1). There is no icon on the desktop, nor anything automounted.

All this leads to my questions:
1) what is the current status of eSATA hotplugging in Ubuntu?
2) is it different between Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu (i.e., is it in Gnome/KDE/X or lower down)?
3) what is the planned support in the coming versions of Ubuntu?
4) is this something that will improve with the HAL deprecation and move to udev etc.?
5) is there a workaround that I can use (restarting some process etc.) to get the machine to refresh the disks without actually having to reboot? The machine with the eSATA port records TV for us, so it is often a problem to restart it.

Thanks in advance for your help!

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applecache(Nolan King) (nolanking) said : 		#1

Hello i see this a 4 hours ago query.

Here goes. If you sure that your motherboard supports the esata contoller then fine. Hopefully you know that esata doesnt have an internal power and needs usb power or and external power source. Hopefully you know you need to put the esata cable in first and then the usb cable so that esata knows what you want ie esata speed or usb speed.

Answers to questions:

1) esata works in ubuntu 9.10 karmic [ this is what i am using at the moment that i am typing to you ] i have not tried it on xubuntu or mythbuntu or any other distributions as of yet. I have down it on previous version of ubuntu like jaunty etc with no problems there either.

2) no too sure what you mean by this but i have been using gnome all the time and i am not familiar with kde/x or lower. In gnome when usb it pops up like a usb image and i have full access to it without giving authorization. In esata mode it does not pop up but i see an icon on my top panel [ using disk mounter located in "add to panel" section ]. Afterwards i just click and authorise and speeds is esata speed typically on an ntfs external hard drive 7200rpm 2.5" i get 40 - 54mb

3) there is already support for it. According to me disk mounting is much easier than in past distros when i was small hehe

4) I think we are moving away from HAL so yes as laptops which i am busy on get esata as standard we can expect better support.

5) Im not sure what is needed to restart the process.

Hope this helps :)

Revision history for this message
Aaron Whitehouse (aaron-whitehouse) said : 		#2

Thanks Apple,

I am testing with an Ubuntu Karmic (9.10) live CD. When I plug in my eSATA drive after booting, nothing appears on the desktop or in the "Disk Mounter" section. Does the icon appear for you if you plug it in after booting, or only if it is plugged in at boot?

Revision history for this message
applecache(Nolan King) (nolanking) said : 		#3

At first the icon does not appear on my desktop but in my disk mounter it does appear. To access it i click on it and then i type my user password. From then on i can access it.

It appears before and after booting. I am using a precision m4400 laptop and i havent tried it with live cd but rather a full installation which i recommend.

Can you help with this problem?

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