# support for SERIAL ata ?

## taskara

I don't think that even the latest stable kernel (2.4.19) supports serial ata.

Anyone know if perhaps one of the 2.5 series beta kernels support it ?

Thinking of upgrading from my kt333 to kt400 with serial ata, but I may not bother if serial isn't supported yet.

ta!

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## golias

As far as I understand, S-ATA requires no software changes. In fact, all the motherboards and adaptor cards I have seen advertised/reviewed use regular parallel ATA controllers and bridge chips to convert to S-ATA.

The next generation of controllers will probably be S-ATA by default, and require a bridge chip to convert to parallel ATA.

Also you should bear in mind that regular PCs will not be able to take advantage of S-ATA 150MB/sec 'cause regular 33Mhz, 32bit PCI is only capable of transfering 133MB/s sec. So except for the nicer cables, there is currently no benefit to S-ATA.

Hope this helps!

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## taskara

thanks.. so it uses the same chip, just a different connection.

ahh yeah I read somewhere there's not software change  :Smile: 

think I may upgrade anyway, I'll let you know.

oh oh that means I can get a serial hard drive.. oooohhh..  :Wink: 

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## pjp

Have any links on serial ata using paralell technology?  I'm not disagreeing, just that I've not noticed it in what I've read.  Would seem that wouldn't offer the benefits serial-ata purports.

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## taskara

It's a bit confusing, but I think that the serial ata uses a different chip. Most mainboards I have looked at are using the Marvell 88i8030 Serial ATA chip.

So this raises a new point - if this chip isn't supported by the linux kernel, then it won't see your hard disk drives.

Boards like Asus are also including the standard parallel via controllers and parallel promise raid controllers. They seem to indicate on their webpage that you can use the serial in raid array - so maybe this runs off the promise chip ?

it's a bit confusing.. anyone played with one? or understand what the go is ?

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## Valen

 *kanuslupus wrote:*   

> Have any links on serial ata using paralell technology?  I'm not disagreeing, just that I've not noticed it in what I've read.  Would seem that wouldn't offer the benefits serial-ata purports.

 

There was a review on Tom's Hardware which had some pictures of a Highpoint serial to parallel converter.

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## pjp

As I recall, that converter was simply to allow current IDE drives to work on a serial-ata controller.  That isn't used if you have a serial-ata drive.

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## taskara

yeah, that's what it looks like to me.

but that's not going to get you any speed increase, cause you're still running a parallel drive.

as far as I know, if the Marvell 88i8030 Serial ATA chip is not supported by the kernel, then serial under linux is useless.

it's like when ata66 first came out. Couldn't get new drives working.

thoughts ?

is there some place we can find out whethe the kernel supports it or not ?

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## Valen

 *kanuslupus wrote:*   

> As I recall, that converter was simply to allow current IDE drives to work on a serial-ata controller.  That isn't used if you have a serial-ata drive.

 

Sorry, I thought that's what you were asking about, so you are asking about the reverse (a serial ata drive plugging into a parallel connector)?  If that is it I think that is handled within the chipset/adapter card and you get an actual serial ata plug sticking out.

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## taskara

just want to know if a serial hard drive plugged into a serial controller will work under linux.

 :Smile: 

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## pjp

 *Valen wrote:*   

> Sorry, I thought that's what you were asking about

 I may have misunderstood.  I will start with an example.  Currently, my MB has an onboard IDE controller.  How I interpreted the comment was, on-board serial-ata controllers were parallel ata-controllers.  Does that make more sense?  

The 'adapter' is simply a way to keep your existing HDs on a new serial-ata based system.  As much as current systems will not benefit from using serial-ata, neither will current systems benefit from ata/133.  The purpose of the 'adapter' is to ease the transition.

 *taskara wrote:*   

> just want to know if a serial hard drive plugged into a serial controller will work under linux.

 We eagerly await your test results  :Wink:  At this point, I'm doubtful.  Linux would have to talk to the serial-ata controller which would go through the parallel adapter and then to the non serial-ata HD.

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## Fmangeant

Hi

Serial-ATA patches are provided here :

http://www.linuxdiskcert.org/

The latest patch applies against 2.4.19-ac4

Regards,

Frédéric Mangeant

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