generic HW question about SATA

Hey,

I'm upgrading my main linux box this weekend. I have about a TB worth of HD's to use, all ATA.

I know that the new standard is SATA, and i actually have ONE SATA drive that I could use if I wanted to (its in a USB box right now).
But never having used SATA, can ATA and SATA be used in the same PC?

For examplecan I have all 4 ATA channels full (3 HD's and a DVDRW) and then activate the SATA channels in BIOS and throw this single drive on the back end as well?

Data-Junky

Thanks

j

[Mark Knoop]

On 26/01/07, [e-mail]  wrote:
> Hey,
>
> I'm upgrading my main linux box this weekend. I have about a TB worth of
> HD's to use, all ATA.
>
> I know that the new standard is SATA, and i actually have ONE SATA drive
> that I could use if I wanted to (its in a USB box right now).
>
> But never having used SATA, can ATA and SATA be used in the same PC?
>
> For examplecan I have all 4 ATA channels full (3 HD's and a DVDRW) and then
> activate the SATA channels in BIOS and throw this single drive on the back
> end as well?

It entirely depends on your motherboard - linux will handle whatever
it sees. I have 2 SATA hard drives, a SATA DVDRW and an IDE HD running
with no problems.

Look up your motherboard specs to check on its capabilities - although
one would think that if you can plug it in, then the board should be
able to address it.

GREAT

Thanks! I really need whats on this drive

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Mark Knoop  
Date: Friday, January 26, 2007 9:00 am 
Subject: Re: generic HW question about SATA 
To: For users of Fedora
> On 26/01/07, [e-mail]  wrote:
> > Hey,
> >
> > I'm upgrading my main linux box this weekend. I have about a TB
>
> worth of
> > HD's to use, all ATA.
> >
> > I know that the new standard is SATA, and i actually have ONE
>
> SATA drive
> > that I could use if I wanted to (its in a USB box right now).
> >
> > But never having used SATA, can ATA and SATA be used in the same PC?
> >
> > For examplecan I have all 4 ATA channels full (3 HD's and a
>
> DVDRW) and then
> > activate the SATA channels in BIOS and throw this single drive
>
> on the back
> > end as well?
>
> It entirely depends on your motherboard - linux will handle whatever 
> it sees. I have 2 SATA hard drives, a SATA DVDRW and an IDE HD running 
> with no problems.
>
> Look up your motherboard specs to check on its capabilities - although 
> one would think that if you can plug it in, then the board should be 
> able to address it.
>
> -- 
> Mark Knoop
>
> -- 
> fedora-list mailing list 
> [e-mail] 
> To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list

[Dave Stevens]

On Fri, 2007-01-26 at 11:23 -0500, [e-mail] wrote:
> GREAT
>
> Thanks! I really need whats on this drive

I use sata and ata on my asus socket 939 board without issues.

dave
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: Mark Knoop  
> Date: Friday, January 26, 2007 9:00 am 
> Subject: Re: generic HW question about SATA 
> To: For users of Fedora
> > On 26/01/07, [e-mail]  wrote:
> > > Hey,
> > >
> > > I'm upgrading my main linux box this weekend. I have about a TB
> >
> > worth of
> > > HD's to use, all ATA.
> > >
> > > I know that the new standard is SATA, and i actually have ONE
> >
> > SATA drive
> > > that I could use if I wanted to (its in a USB box right now).
> > >
> > > But never having used SATA, can ATA and SATA be used in the same
>
> PC?
> > > For examplecan I have all 4 ATA channels full (3 HD's and a
> >
> > DVDRW) and then
> > > activate the SATA channels in BIOS and throw this single drive
> >
> > on the back
> > > end as well?
> >
> > It entirely depends on your motherboard - linux will handle
>
> whatever
> > it sees. I have 2 SATA hard drives, a SATA DVDRW and an IDE HD
>
> running
> > with no problems.
> >
> > Look up your motherboard specs to check on its capabilities -
>
> although
> > one would think that if you can plug it in, then the board should
>
> be
> > able to address it.
> >
> > -- 
> > Mark Knoop
> >
> > -- 
> > fedora-list mailing list 
> > [e-mail] 
> > To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
>
> -- 
> fedora-list mailing list
> [e-mail]
> To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list

[Anne Wilson]

On Friday 26 January 2007 18:40, Dave Stevens wrote:
> On Fri, 2007-01-26 at 11:23 -0500, [e-mail] wrote:
> > GREAT
> >
> > Thanks! I really need whats on this drive
>
> I use sata and ata on my asus socket 939 board without issues.

Are there any issues as to where the OS is, on such a mixed-drive setup?  I 
ask because windwave seems to want something that I have been considering - 
adding a SATA drive to an existing PATA installation.

Anne

[Kevin Cummings]

Anne Wilson wrote:
> Are there any issues as to where the OS is, on such a mixed-drive setup?  I 
> ask because windwave seems to want something that I have been considering - 
> adding a SATA drive to an existing PATA installation.

Yes.  Most SATA support is through a SATA device driver which either
needs to be built directly into your kernel, or a module pre-loaded
through your initrd image.  I recently added 2 SATA drives to my already
running PATA system.  Since I was still booting with my hda drive as my
boot drive, I didn't have to change anything.  I just made sure that the
sata_nv driver was included in my initrd, and when I booted, linux found
my SATA drives.  I have since moved my root partition from /dev/hda2 to
/dev/sdb2.  Now, I still boot from /dev/hda, and I have told grub that
my root is on the new disk drive (hd2, 1).

I have not yet solved the magic incantation to get my BIOS to boot from
the SATA drive first.  I also don't know what my disk map will look like
when I do.  I had enough trouble moving my root partition and getting
grub to do the correct thing from my rescue disk before that I put off
doing the final step (and possible removing the last PATA disk from my
system).
> Anne

YMMV, but hopefully, not much.

[James Wilkinson]

Kevin J. Cummings wrote:
> Yes.  Most SATA support is through a SATA device driver which either
> needs to be built directly into your kernel, or a module pre-loaded
> through your initrd image.  I recently added 2 SATA drives to my already
> running PATA system.  Since I was still booting with my hda drive as my
> boot drive, I didn't have to change anything.  I just made sure that the
> sata_nv driver was included in my initrd, and when I booted, linux found
> my SATA drives.

Actually, you might not have needed to put sata_nv into your initrd.

The SATA device driver needs to be loaded into the kernel before you
attempt to use a SATA disk. But it only needs to be compiled in or in
initrd if you need it to access your boot or root partitions.

Once the kernel has booted and mounted the root partition, it can then 
load other modules it needs from /lib/modules (for example, when it's
trying to mount other partitions).

So if you use traditional IDE modules to get that far, you don't need
SATA in your initrd.

James.

[Anne Wilson]

On Tuesday 20 February 2007, James Wilkinson wrote:
> Kevin J. Cummings wrote:
> > Yes.  Most SATA support is through a SATA device driver which either
> > needs to be built directly into your kernel, or a module pre-loaded
> > through your initrd image.  I recently added 2 SATA drives to my already
> > running PATA system.  Since I was still booting with my hda drive as my
> > boot drive, I didn't have to change anything.  I just made sure that the
> > sata_nv driver was included in my initrd, and when I booted, linux found
> > my SATA drives.
>
> Actually, you might not have needed to put sata_nv into your initrd.
>
> The SATA device driver needs to be loaded into the kernel before you
> attempt to use a SATA disk. But it only needs to be compiled in or in
> initrd if you need it to access your boot or root partitions.
>
> Once the kernel has booted and mounted the root partition, it can then
> load other modules it needs from /lib/modules (for example, when it's
> trying to mount other partitions).
>
> So if you use traditional IDE modules to get that far, you don't need
> SATA in your initrd.

OK - trying to get my head around this.  So I'd need to prepare the disk(s) 
using fdisk, after which kudzu would detect them and load the relevant 
module, just leaving the creation of mount points to do?  I want to use them 
for long-term storage.

Anne

[Mikkel]

Anne Wilson wrote:
> OK - trying to get my head around this.  So I'd need to prepare the disk(s) 
> using fdisk, after which kudzu would detect them and load the relevant 
> module, just leaving the creation of mount points to do?  I want to use them 
> for long-term storage.

Kudzu should find the disk when you add it. You can not run fdisk on
the disk(s) if the SATA module does not get loaded. I am not sure
what happens when you reboot after partitioning the disks - it would
be interesting to see if the partitions would get auto-mounted off
of /media if you do not have entries for them in fstab.

Mikkel

[Anne Wilson]

On Wednesday 21 February 2007, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> Anne Wilson wrote:
> > OK - trying to get my head around this.  So I'd need to prepare the
> > disk(s) using fdisk, after which kudzu would detect them and load the
> > relevant module, just leaving the creation of mount points to do?  I want
> > to use them for long-term storage.
>
> Kudzu should find the disk when you add it. You can not run fdisk on
> the disk(s) if the SATA module does not get loaded. I am not sure
> what happens when you reboot after partitioning the disks - it would
> be interesting to see if the partitions would get auto-mounted off
> of /media if you do not have entries for them in fstab.

As things have turned out, I've had to put this project off for a few weeks.  
I'll let you know how it goes

Anne

[James Wilkinson]

Anne Wilson wrote:
> OK - trying to get my head around this.  So I'd need to prepare the disk(s) 
> using fdisk, after which kudzu would detect them and load the relevant 
> module, just leaving the creation of mount points to do?  I want to use them 
> for long-term storage.

Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> Kudzu should find the disk when you add it.

I'm not sure that it is kudzu these days -- as I understand it, the
hotplug system should detect it on boot, and udev should add a /dev/sda
device node.

As for the SATA drivers, they're probably loaded anyway. They are on my
nForce 4 system with only traditional IDE devices¹:
$ /sbin/lsmod | grep sata
sata_nv                22341  0 
libata                126697  1 sata_nv
> You can not run fdisk on
> the disk(s) if the SATA module does not get loaded. I am not sure
> what happens when you reboot after partitioning the disks - it would
> be interesting to see if the partitions would get auto-mounted off
> of /media if you do not have entries for them in fstab.

I would think that highly unlikely, because the disks would not have
filesystems on them. Anne would have to mke2fs new filesystems before
they could be mounted.

What I'm not sure about is whether suitable device nodes will be created
when Anne either creates new partitions or a new logical volume (e.g.
/dev/sda1, if she creates one large traditional partition). I don't know
if there's any way to get the system to rescan the disk short of
rebooting.

In any case, my experience is that FC6 won't auto-mount partitions on
non-removable media. I seem to remember there being issues with Fedora
kernels using new ext3 features which older e2fsck programs can't
handle. That's a bit of a problem if the filesystem in question is the
root filesystem of the "main" Linux distribution on a computer, and
that distro is an older one with an old e2fsck -- the older distribution
then can't check its filesystems on boot-up.

James.

¹ Because I already had them from an older system...

[Mikkel]

James Wilkinson wrote:
> Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> > Kudzu should find the disk when you add it.
>
> I'm not sure that it is kudzu these days -- as I understand it, the
> hotplug system should detect it on boot, and udev should add a /dev/sda
> device node.

Udev rather then hotplug. Hotplug is on the way out. It isn't even
used when you plug in USB devices any more. It is supposed to be
able to use hotplug scripts, but I think that is broken. At least it
does not work for my GPS or REB1100. (I files a bug report on the
GPS, but not the REB1100, as I broke the REB1100, and can't really
test that any more.) But Kudzu should at least update
/etc/sysconfig/hwconf.
> > I am not sure
> > what happens when you reboot after partitioning the disks - it would
> > be interesting to see if the partitions would get auto-mounted off
> > of /media if you do not have entries for them in fstab.
>
> I would think that highly unlikely, because the disks would not have
> filesystems on them. Anne would have to mke2fs new filesystems before
> they could be mounted.

I am not sure how the system would handle it - the partition type
might cause the system to look for a specific type of file system,
and a label. The logs would be interesting in any case. I guess I'll
have to look at the HAL rules...
> What I'm not sure about is whether suitable device nodes will be created
> when Anne either creates new partitions or a new logical volume (e.g.
> /dev/sda1, if she creates one large traditional partition). I don't know
> if there's any way to get the system to rescan the disk short of
> rebooting.

They would be created on a reboot. I think they would also be
created if you use "hdparm -z <drive>" to re-read the partition
table. Then again, fdisk tries to do an update when you write the
partition table to disk...
> In any case, my experience is that FC6 won't auto-mount partitions on
> non-removable media.

I have not played with it, that is why I was wondering what the
system would do...

Mikkel

[Anne Wilson]

On Thursday 22 February 2007 20:58, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> James Wilkinson wrote:
> > Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> > > Kudzu should find the disk when you add it.
> >
> > I'm not sure that it is kudzu these days -- as I understand it, the
> > hotplug system should detect it on boot, and udev should add a /dev/sda
> > device node.
>
> Udev rather then hotplug. Hotplug is on the way out. It isn't even
> used when you plug in USB devices any more. It is supposed to be
> able to use hotplug scripts, but I think that is broken. At least it
> does not work for my GPS or REB1100. (I files a bug report on the
> GPS, but not the REB1100, as I broke the REB1100, and can't really
> test that any more.) But Kudzu should at least update
> /etc/sysconfig/hwconf.
> > > I am not sure
> > > what happens when you reboot after partitioning the disks - it would
> > > be interesting to see if the partitions would get auto-mounted off
> > > of /media if you do not have entries for them in fstab.
> >
> > I would think that highly unlikely, because the disks would not have
> > filesystems on them. Anne would have to mke2fs new filesystems before
> > they could be mounted.
>
> I am not sure how the system would handle it - the partition type
> might cause the system to look for a specific type of file system,
> and a label. The logs would be interesting in any case. I guess I'll
> have to look at the HAL rules...
> > What I'm not sure about is whether suitable device nodes will be created
> > when Anne either creates new partitions or a new logical volume (e.g.
> > /dev/sda1, if she creates one large traditional partition). I don't know
> > if there's any way to get the system to rescan the disk short of
> > rebooting.
>
> They would be created on a reboot. I think they would also be
> created if you use "hdparm -z <drive>" to re-read the partition
> table. Then again, fdisk tries to do an update when you write the
> partition table to disk...
> > In any case, my experience is that FC6 won't auto-mount partitions on
> > non-removable media.
>
> I have not played with it, that is why I was wondering what the
> system would do...

I thought that udev and hal only dealt with removeable drives?

Anne

[Mikkel]

Anne Wilson wrote:
> I thought that udev and hal only dealt with removeable drives?

Udev deals with just about every device. All the entries in /dev are
created by udev. There is actually a file system mounted on top of
/dev that is managed by udev. If you look at /dev after booting form
a live CD, you will see only a few entries - just enough to get the
system started. How much HAL gets in the act depends on the HAL
rules. There is a udev rule that tells HAL about every device that
is added. It gets more complicated all the time!

# pass all events to the HAL daemon

RUN+="socket:/org/freedesktop/hal/udev_event"

Mikkel

[John Wendel]

Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> Anne Wilson wrote:
> > I thought that udev and hal only dealt with removeable drives?
>
> Udev deals with just about every device. All the entries in /dev are
> created by udev. There is actually a file system mounted on top of
> /dev that is managed by udev. If you look at /dev after booting form
> a live CD, you will see only a few entries - just enough to get the
> system started. How much HAL gets in the act depends on the HAL
> rules. There is a udev rule that tells HAL about every device that
> is added. It gets more complicated all the time!
>
> # pass all events to the HAL daemon
>
> RUN+="socket:/org/freedesktop/hal/udev_event"
>
> Mikkel

I'm running a mix of PATA and SATA drives here. Just to add a little 
simplicity, I don't run the HAL daemon on my systems, and I don't 
automount anything (except /, /boot, and swap). All my disk partitions 
are labeled, so I couldn't care less about device names. I usually 
mount my data drives on directories in my home directory.

So far, no problems.

Regards,

John