eSata SheevaPlug

[c128]

Thats about 100.- for a plug with esata, another 100.- for a enclosure. What about directly heading for Qnap 219P? Integrated in one case, bigger (more silent) fan then the cheap enclosure. Same CPU, same amount of memory, an serial interface with a little bit of soldering. Able to install the debian on a plugged in USB stick (or the disks). two exte esata ports, two free (if one has the usb stick) usb ports. 300.-

I already had 4x500GB drives (from an old Windows server) - the QNAP would have been quite a bit more expensive than the non-eSATA Sheeva + DAS400 I did buy, and not as suitable based on what I already had.
Having said that, if I were making the decision now, I would still go with the Sheevaplug...I just find it more interesting  .

[tangleboss2]

Cool!  Does the esata port support port multiplication?

No, it does not.

One of the reasons I posted my progress was because several people were enquiring about port multiplication / multiple disk support. I can see two separate disks on my ESATA port in uBoot with the disk box in JBOD mode so the hardware supports it and I expect it to work under Linux with the correct configuration options once I get around to testing it. You do need a recent kernel, at least 2.6.30 If memory serves to even have the option. I'll report progress next week.

[Rabeeh Khoury]

The SATA ports from Kirkwood 6281 supports port multiplier.
I'm not sure about the current libata driver in the kerenl, but the Marvell mvSata driver does.

[tangleboss2]

since it may be some time before I work out why my new cross compiled kernel won't boot at all here is uBoot looking at a port multiplier with two disks attached.

Marvell>> ide reset

Reset IDE: 
Marvell Serial ATA Adapter
Integrated Sata device found
Port Multiplier found @ 0 1. Vendor: 1095 ports: 3
[0 1 0]: Enable DMA mode (6)
  Device 1 @ 0 1 0:
Model: WDC WD15EADS-00R6B0                      Firm: 01.00A01 Ser#:      WD-WCAVY1006453
            Type: Hard Disk
            Supports 48-bit addressing
            Capacity: 1430799.3 MB = 1397.2 GB (-1364690128 x 512)
[0 1 1]: Enable DMA mode (6)
  Device 2 @ 0 1 1:
Model: WDC WD15EADS-00R6B0                      Firm: 01.00A01 Ser#:      WD-WCAVY0934869
            Type: Hard Disk
            Supports 48-bit addressing
            Capacity: 1430799.3 MB = 1397.2 GB (-1364690128 x 512)

Marvell>>

[marcus]

The SATA ports from Kirkwood 6281 supports port multiplier.
I'm not sure about the current libata driver in the kerenl, but the Marvell mvSata driver does.

The full answer I received was "No port multiplication- it only supports one drive". Are we giving contrary answers?

[marcus]

Replying to my previous messages (again), I've received the following clarification:

... the chip supports it, but there needs to be manipulation with software/hardware. Therefore the multiplication functionality is not there straight out of the box.

[tangleboss2]

I'm off on holiday and haven't got my kernel fully working yet... but I have seen the Marvel SATA driver find and report both drives in the same way as the uBoot log I posted earlier, but I don't have the log available to post right now. Unfortunately the kernel currently oopses a while after that, I'm not sure if its related to my changes, I need to get some time to play with it. I'm currently cross-compiling using the latest .config from sheevawithlinux for 2.6.32.3 plus minimal changes to the sheeva board initialisation routine to enable the sata ports.

If someone is shipping sheevaplugs with working ESATA ports then there ought to be a kernel source package available with the required modifications to enable basic SATA even if it doesn't have the required port multiplier options enabled (search all SCSI LUNs and PM support I think are the vital ones).

I haven't looked at the driver code to see how much the PM support is in the specific driver and how much is generic to Linux, there must be some specific code in the driver to cope with the chip set, but one of Marvell's main product lines is SATA PM chip sets so I would hope the PM support is working in both the hardware and driver.

[NewIT]

Just to add to the spec of the models we have due in to us, the eSata port is version II speed 3GBps.

[superpat]

Hi,

Just a word of caution regarding Esata drive enclosures.

Some of the cheap Chinese enclosures use a 1.5Gb/s bridge chip, and I found them difficult to get the Sheevaplug to recognise when they were connected

see this post:  http://plugcomputer.org/plugforum/index.php?topic=927.msg6021#msg6021

Although there are probably others,  I purchased a Antec MX25 enclosure which works well, "hots plugs" every time. Unfortunately I cannot identify the IC used in the Antec, the top has been abraded to removed manf info, and it has been overstamped "SATALINK"

Some performance figures using the Antec enclosure and Samsung drive:-  http://plugcomputer.org/plugforum/index.php?topic=927.msg6163#msg6163

regards

Patrick

[NewIT]

All of our units have now been delivered and the store has been updated to reflect this, will try and get some pictures of the entire eSata package done soon.

[tangleboss2]

Got a working kernel with ESATA support 

Used the latest 2.6.32.7 config and patches from sheeva.with-linux.com and just recompiled with the modified version of sheevaplug-setup.c, not sure what went wrong before.

With my Startech S352U2RER dual drive USB/ESATA box configured in JBOD mode with 2 WD 1.5TB disks it's all working

ata2: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl F300)
ata2.15: Port Multiplier 1.1, 0x1095:0x5744 r33, 3 ports, feat 0x1/0x9
ata2.00: hard resetting link
ata2.01: hard resetting link
ata2.02: hard resetting link
ata2.00: ATA-8: WDC WD15EADS-00R6B0, 01.00A01, max UDMA/133
ata2.00: 2930277168 sectors, multi 0: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32)
ata2.00: configured for UDMA/133
ata2.01: ATA-8: WDC WD15EADS-00R6B0, 01.00A01, max UDMA/133
ata2.01: 2930277168 sectors, multi 0: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32)
ata2.01: configured for UDMA/133
ata2: EH complete
scsi 1:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      WDC WD15EADS-00R 01.0 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] 2930277168 512-byte logical blocks: (1.50 TB/1.36 TiB)
sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
scsi 1:1:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      WDC WD15EADS-00R 01.0 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
sd 1:1:0:0: [sdb] 2930277168 512-byte logical blocks: (1.50 TB/1.36 TiB)
sd 1:1:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0
 sda:
sd 1:1:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
sd 1:1:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
 sda1
 sdb:
sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
 sdb1
sd 1:1:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk


At 3GB/s 

Performance looks good, varies between 65 and 80 MB/s

/root@sheeva:~# hdparm -t /dev/sda1

/dev/sda1:
 Timing buffered disk reads:  224 MB in  3.01 seconds =  74.46 MB/sec
root@sheeva:~# hdparm -t /dev/sdb1

/dev/sdb1:
 Timing buffered disk reads:  202 MB in  3.01 seconds =  67.08 MB/sec
root@sheeva:~#

Now to actually do something useful with it.

[portnawak]

Got a working kernel with ESATA support 

Used the latest 2.6.32.7 config and patches from sheeva.with-linux.com and just recompiled with the modified version of sheevaplug-setup.c, not sure what went

Hi tangleboss2.

Good news ! Thanks for the update.

I have to do this as well, and then switch my 4 bays enclosure from USB to eSata.

Can you please share with us how you succeeded in the cross compilation ? Is there a how-to somewhere ? (my Debian Squeeze is on a SD card)

Thanks.

[tangleboss2]

I just downloaded and installed the arm-2009q3-67-arm-none-linux-gnuabi compiler from CodeSourcery (I'm doing everything on a Gentoo Linux box).

Download your kernel of choice from kernel.org
download the matching patches and config file from sheeva.with-linux.
Apply the patches.
Install the modified setup file - either modify it yourself by looking at the RD one or download the one superpat supplied here http://plugcomputer.org/plugforum/index.php?topic=927.15

Then copy the .config file from sheeva.with-linux into the linux directory and compile using something like

Code:

make -j2 ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-none-linux-gnueabi- uImage

If you need other changes then obviously you need to do make menuconfig etc.. At least that's all you should need to do, I still have no idea why my initial efforts went wrong unless it's part of the problems with the crypto system and a compiler bug that has been discussed elsewhere.

Since I only needed the modified setup code - the sheeva.with-linux config has all the other options you need for port multiplier and ESATA enabled already - I am still using the modules from sheeva.with-linux but you can compile your own set using

Code:

make -j2 ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-none-linux-gnueabi- INSTALL_MOD_PATH=../modules modules_install

These assume you have a dual core machine (the -j2)

Then install using the instructions that are around. In my case installing to a SD card it's actually trivially easy to put the card in a SD reader on my linux box and copy the files - also easier to recover if the kernel doesn't work.

For what it's worth the dual 3.5 drive Startech box I'm using uses a Silicon Image 5744 chip - I just opened it up to extract 5V to eliminate the Sheevaplug mains supply. Seems like a reasonably constructed box with an extruded aluminium case although it's not what you need if you want a really small 2.5 inch solution or more than 2 disks and a temperature controlled fan rather than an on/off switch would be nice. I don't know if the cheaper box they do without the removable disk caddies uses the same chip. I haven't tested hot-plugging either as it's not what I need for a home server but the chip spec sheet says it does.

I also used the uBoot from  http://www.naobsd.org/sheeva/u-boot-rd88f6281Sheevaplug_400db_nand.bin but I think this is optional unless you want to boot from a ESATA disk. This version has both SATA and SD card support, the RDbase version doesn't support SD card booting.

With the availability of ESATA enabled plugs it's a pity you can't get official versions of this sort of thing yet and all the official stuff is well out of date. You need a 2.6.30 or later kernel to get port multiplier support in the kernel for example unless someone backported stuff. It's not to me yet clear what kernel actually ships with the ESATA enabled plugs.

[portnawak]

I just downloaded...

Thanks for your time and this detailed message with lots of instructions.

I'm out in a business trip for few days, but no doubt that I'll give it a try next week end (since yesterday evening, I'm now using Debian on flash, but I'll probably switch again to SD until I'm sure I get a working kernel)

Thanks again.

[alfon]

It's not to me yet clear what kernel actually ships with the ESATA enabled plugs.

As I have received an esata plug a couple of days ago, the answer is just a boot away:

root@debian:~# uname -r
2.6.22.18

best regards,
Alf