Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:13:12 +0000 From: Dieter <freebsd@sopwith.solgatos.com> To: freebsd-firewire@freebsd.org Subject: Re: firewire disk support? Message-ID: <200902032313.XAA18326@sopwith.solgatos.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 02 Feb 2009 21:53:06 PST." <1233640386.8067.18.camel@localhost.localdomain>
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> > How well does FreeBSD support firewire disks? > > Does hotplugging work properly? > > Does a bus reset endanger data? > > Can I turn the disk write cache on and off? > > Can I access SMART info? > > How fast are they? > > Specific firewire-to-sata bridges that are recommended? > > Specific bridges to avoid? > > Any known problems? > > > > I have a couple of USB-to-*ATA bridges and they are slow, > > and they don't allow turning the disk's write cache off, > > or access to SMART info. I know that firewire will be > > slower than esata, but the USB ones are really slow > > (10-15 MB/s) and not being able to turn the write cache > > on and off is a serious problem. > > > Excellent questions all. Here is what I know: > > FreeBSD firewire drives 400/800 do work just fine. > > hotplug works much better now after a comitt to HEAD.(187993) > -- Some of which will be MFC'd to 7 soon Hmmm, the mail flying around on kern/97208 makes it sound like it doesn't work so well. :-( > Caching and SMART do not work. SBP doesn't pass through these commands > yet. TODO So the bridge chips can pass the commands through, and we just need to teach the kernel how to do that? > Bridges/enclosures to avoid? Unknown. There is at least one chip to avoid, part number forgotten. > I don't know if BSD is bootable from firewire either. That would depend on the mainboard firmware. If coreboot (formerly known as LinuxBIOS) supports the board, it could probably be made to support booting from firewire. http://www.coreboot.org/Booting_FreeBSD_using_coreboot I'm trying to dig myself out from the Seagate 7200.11 firmware hole, need to backup to non-7200.11 disks without rebooting. I was hoping that a firewire-to-sata bridge might give me hotplugging, but it sounds like it isn't quite there yet.
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