Are external SATA devices "hotplug"?

tashirosgt · #1 14th July 2009, 06:51 PM

I've never owned an external SATA device, so I'm curious whether these devices are hotpluggable in Fedora. Some computer cases and case inserts have an external SATA connector that plugs into the motherbords built-in SATA connectors and extends the connection so it reaches outside the case. But can you plug and unplug SATA devices just as you do USB devices?

sej7278 · #2 15th July 2009, 08:19 AM

you can plug them in post-boot but you have to mount them manually, and then unplug them after unmounting. they don't automount like usb drives.

also some chipsets don't support hotplugging, in which case they have to be plugged in before you boot or they won't get seen, but thats a bios/chipset issue, not fedora-specific.

tashirosgt · #3 15th July 2009, 08:00 PM

Thank you for that info. I needed reassurance that I could plug-in a device without seeing sparks.

sej7278 · #4 16th July 2009, 11:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tashirosgt

Thank you for that info. I needed reassurance that I could plug-in a device without seeing sparks.

lol ! no, no sparks or crashes etc.

RogerOdle · #5 21st November 2009, 01:56 AM

It was certainly hot-plugable in Fedora 10, 11, and 12. The difference is that in F10 and F11 you could use polkit-gnome-authorization to enable automount for them and them you could use them much like USB memory devices. Why was polkit-gnome-authorization dropped from F12? There is no reason not to treat esata generically as just another variation of USB/Firewire. There is no technical reason, it is only a policy decision.

Astrals · #6 21st November 2009, 10:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RogerOdle

It was certainly hot-plugable in Fedora 10, 11, and 12. The difference is that in F10 and F11 you could use polkit-gnome-authorization to enable automount for them and them you could use them much like USB memory devices. Why was polkit-gnome-authorization dropped from F12? There is no reason not to treat esata generically as just another variation of USB/Firewire. There is no technical reason, it is only a policy decision.

Have to agree, i use the same setup on F10 and 11, now on F12 no support for this, what were they thinking?
No how do i get my data from external sata hd connected to a simple sata port, to my in internal hd?
If there is not going to be any support for this that leaves people like me with only one choice, use another linux distro, now that would be bad news for anybody.

If anybody has any help with this, it will be greatly appreciated.

dhorns · #7 15th January 2010, 01:23 PM

Has this been resolved? I found the hot-plug feature for eSATA in Fedora 11 quite useful and am also disappointed that is does not seem to work in Fedora 12...

droidhacker · #8 18th January 2010, 08:28 PM

Probably because hotplugging is a nightmare to anyone plugging in an array of sata/sas disks, or using hotplugging on a server for flipping hotspares, backups, etc. Some things are better manual.

patrickjchase · #9 29th June 2010, 06:55 AM

Even if the old polkit-gnome-authorization were present, it wouldn't be able to enable automounting in F12 and F13. The issue is that the F12/F13 gvfs packages mark all non-USB/Firewire device as not automountable, and that marking trumps the policykit settings that polkit-gnome-authorization is designed to manage.

I've been able to get this working on my own F13 desktop by building a custom gvfs package with the offending code change (partially) changed. The relevant patch and specfile are attached to this message. To use these, do the following:

1. Install gvfs-1.6.2-1.fc13.src.rpm from F13 updates
2. Overwrite the specfile with the attached one
3. Put the attached patch in your SOURCES directory
4. Build as usual