[arch-general] Note: WDC Carvair Black 6 Gbps drives require jumpers on pins 5-6 to be recognized as SATA-II

[Mauro Santos]

On 24-07-2011 19:55, David C. Rankin wrote:
> Guys,
> 
>   Just a note. The newer Carvair Black 6.0 Gbps drives do not come with
> jumpers. However, in order for the drives to be recognized as SATA-II on
> some controllers (the default is SATA-I at 1.5 Gbps), you must install
> jumpers on pins 5-6 for the drives to initialize at 3.0 Gbps:
> 
> 13:23 nirvana:~> sudo dmesg | grep ata
> <snip>
> [    1.363358] ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
> [    1.370543] ata1.00: ATA-8: WDC WD1002FAEX-00Z3A0, 05.01D05, max
> UDMA/133
> [    1.372815] ata1.00: 1953525168 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 NCQ (depth
> 0/32)
> [    1.380018] ata3: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
> [    1.386960] ata3.00: ATA-8: ST3750528AS, CC35, max UDMA/133
> [    1.389290] ata3.00: 1465149168 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 NCQ (depth
> 0/32)
> [    1.389303] ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133
> [    1.406937] ata3.00: configured for UDMA/133
> [    1.853354] ata2: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
> [    1.860937] ata2.00: ATA-8: WDC WD1002FAEX-00Z3A0, 05.01D05, max
> UDMA/133
> [    1.863299] ata2.00: 1953525168 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 NCQ (depth
> 0/32)
> [    1.877002] ata2.00: configured for UDMA/133
> 
> 
>   Without the jumpers, the drives are limited to SATA-I
> 

I'd say the manufacturer must have had some good reason to ship the
drives configured like that and without a jumper.

I'd let the drives operate as they came from the factory if you don't
need the extra bandwidth of a faster interface (probably for most use
cases you can't tell the difference).

-- 
Mauro Santos