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From: bbbl67 on 8 Dec 2008 01:31
A friend of mine has a 500GB WD My Book. It's got one wierd issue, and
that is that you can't read its SMART info when it's being connected
via ESATA, but it works perfectly fine when connected through USB. My
assumption was that SMART only works through ESATA not USB, but it
seems to be exactly the opposite here. He's tried the same drive on
two of his computers a desktop running XP and a laptop running Vista,
and it is exactly the same outcome in both systems: SMART info can
only be read when connected through USB. (The drive also has a
Firewire interface, but we haven't bothered testing that.)

Now I have an idea what's going on here, but I wanted to confirm with
others here if my hypothesis is right. I think what's going on here is
that the My Book has some sort of intelligence onboard that sits
between the computer and the actual drive within the My Book. This
controller has more features when connected through USB (and maybe
Firewire) than through ESATA.

Yousuf Khan
From: Rod Speed on 8 Dec 2008 12:26
bbbl67 <yjkhan(a)gmail.com> wrote:

> A friend of mine has a 500GB WD My Book. It's got one wierd issue, and
> that is that you can't read its SMART info when it's being connected
> via ESATA, but it works perfectly fine when connected through USB.

What are you trying to read the SMART data with ?

> My assumption was that SMART only works through ESATA not USB,
> but it seems to be exactly the opposite here. He's tried the same drive
> on two of his computers a desktop running XP and a laptop running
> Vista, and it is exactly the same outcome in both systems: SMART
> info can only be read when connected through USB. (The drive also
> has a Firewire interface, but we haven't bothered testing that.)

> Now I have an idea what's going on here, but I wanted to confirm
> with others here if my hypothesis is right. I think what's going on
> here is that the My Book has some sort of intelligence onboard that
> sits between the computer and the actual drive within the My Book.

Corse there must be with that many interfaces supported.

>This controller has more features when connected through USB
> (and maybe Firewire) than through ESATA.

It would be unusual for the eSATA connection to not be direct to the drive.
Do you know what format the actual internal drive is, SATA or PATA ?


From: Yousuf Khan on 8 Dec 2008 14:56
Rod Speed wrote:
> bbbl67 <yjkhan(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> A friend of mine has a 500GB WD My Book. It's got one wierd issue, and
>> that is that you can't read its SMART info when it's being connected
>> via ESATA, but it works perfectly fine when connected through USB.
>
> What are you trying to read the SMART data with ?

The DLGDIAG utility that came with the MyBook.

>> This controller has more features when connected through USB
>> (and maybe Firewire) than through ESATA.
>
> It would be unusual for the eSATA connection to not be direct to the drive.
> Do you know what format the actual internal drive is, SATA or PATA ?


It's a relatively new model, built around 2007, so I assume internally
it's likely a SATA. As for whether eSATA connection direct to drive, I
am thinking it's direct to interface controller rather than direct to drive.

Yousuf Khan
From: Rod Speed on 8 Dec 2008 20:06
Yousuf Khan <bbbl67(a)yahoo.com> wrote
> Rod Speed wrote
>> bbbl67 <yjkhan(a)gmail.com> wrote

>>> A friend of mine has a 500GB WD My Book. It's got one wierd issue,
>>> and that is that you can't read its SMART info when it's being connected via ESATA, but it works perfectly fine when
>>> connected through USB.

>> What are you trying to read the SMART data with ?

> The DLGDIAG utility that came with the MyBook.

Maybe it just a quirk of that. See if any of the standard tools can see the SMART data when eSATA connected.

>>> This controller has more features when connected through USB
>>> (and maybe Firewire) than through ESATA.

>> It would be unusual for the eSATA connection to not be direct to the drive. Do you know what format the actual
>> internal drive is, SATA or PATA ?

> It's a relatively new model, built around 2007, so I assume internally it's likely a SATA.

Yeah, thats likely, but not absolutely guaranteed.

> As for whether eSATA connection direct to drive, I am thinking it's direct to interface controller rather than direct
> to drive.

I didnt mean electrically, I meant logically, in other words its just passed straight thru when used in eSATA mode.


From: Yousuf Khan on 9 Dec 2008 03:07
Rod Speed wrote:
> Yousuf Khan <bbbl67(a)yahoo.com> wrote
>> Rod Speed wrote
>>> What are you trying to read the SMART data with ?
>
>> The DLGDIAG utility that came with the MyBook.
>
> Maybe it just a quirk of that. See if any of the standard tools can see the SMART data when eSATA connected.

Well, the DLGDIAG util was able to read all of the SMART info from all
of the other pre-existing internal hard disks, both IDE & SATA, not just
from the MyBook. I believe WD supplies DLGDIAG even with its internal
hard disks, not just with its external hard disk enclosures, so it would
have to be able to handle both types of interfaces.

>>>> This controller has more features when connected through USB
>>>> (and maybe Firewire) than through ESATA.
>
>>> It would be unusual for the eSATA connection to not be direct to the drive. Do you know what format the actual
>>> internal drive is, SATA or PATA ?
>
>> It's a relatively new model, built around 2007, so I assume internally it's likely a SATA.
>
> Yeah, thats likely, but not absolutely guaranteed.

Well, I don't know if it's relevant anyways. The SMART info should be
available no matter if its internal interface was IDE, SATA, or even
SCSI for that matter. The only reason it would not be directly available
is if there is intelligence sitting in between.

>> As for whether eSATA connection direct to drive, I am thinking it's direct to interface controller rather than direct
>> to drive.
>
> I didnt mean electrically, I meant logically, in other words its just passed straight thru when used in eSATA mode.

Yeah, that's what I meant also. And that's what I also think isn't
happening here: there is no straight passthru.

Yousuf Khan
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