Jim Kleckner wrote:
> The recent patches for atacb support for USB drives
> with Cypress chipsets are exciting.
>
> Very often you are trying to deal with drives using a
> USB2.0 bridge like the one from Vantec.
>
> Can you describe how we can tell whether smartctl
> will work with some form of pass-through for a given
> hardware configuration?
>
> How can we tell if there is a Cypress chipset?
>
>
Good question. Some vendors mention the used USB bridge chip in the
specs, but apparently most vendors don't.
> A large number of motherboards use the Intel chipsets.
> Will there ever be a way to use those USB systems
> with smartctl?
>
>
The USB host controller in the motherboard chipsets is unrelated to
SMART functionality.
The problem is the USB/(S)ATA bridge in the external enclosure. It must
be able to pass arbitrary ATA commands via (the SCSI commands passed
via) the USB bus. This is unfortunately vendor specific.
It should work with any motherboard chipset, except if its USB driver
filters the vendor specific command.
Cheers,
Christian
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