MVSATA(4)

💅 MVSATA — bestie's guide to the Marvell Hercules SATA situation 🦋

okay so this is the mvsata page from the Kernel Interfaces Manual (section 4, obviously) and it's giving "legacy hardware realness" but like… in a cute way. let's get into it ✨

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✨ NAME ✨

mvsata — the driver for Marvell Hercules-I and Hercules-II SATA controllers 🎀

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

mvsata* at pci? dev ? function ?

that's it. that's the whole config line. slay 💅

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so the mvsata driver supports the Marvell Hercules-I and Hercules-II family of SATA controllers, and it interfaces the hardware with the ata(4) and atapi(4) subsystems. team player behavior fr fr 🫶

here's the whole iconic lineup of supported controllers, sorted by generation:

🌈 Gen I

• SATA 1.5Gbps — and that's it, bestie. no support for NCQ, PMP, or ATAPI 😭
• Supported controllers:
  • Marvell 88SX50xx Hercules-I

⭐ Gen II

• SATA 3Gbps, with NCQ and PMP support 🎉 — but no ATAPI support, sorry 🙈
• Supported controllers:
  • Adaptec RAID 1420SA
  • Marvell 88SX60xx Hercules-II

👑 Gen IIe

• SATA 3Gbps, plus NCQ, PMP, and ATAPI support — the full package, main character energy 💖
• Supported controllers:
  • Adaptec RAID 1430SA
  • Marvell 88SX70xx Hercules-II
  • Triones Technologies RocketRAID 2310 RAID card

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💜 SEE ALSO 💜

ahcisata(4), ata(4), atapi(4), pci(4), wd(4)

go read those too, iykwim 💅

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🎀 HISTORY 🎀

the mvsata driver first appeared in NetBSD 6.0. NCQ support was added, and ATAPI support enabled, in NetBSD on October 7, 2017. glow-up era, honestly ✨

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🌸 AUTHORS 🌸

the mvsata driver was written by KIYOHARA Takashi <kiyohara@kk.iij4u.or.jp>. NCQ support was added by Jaromir Dolecek <jdolecek@NetBSD.org>. legends, both of them 🫶

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💀 BUGS 💀

okay bestie, sit down, we gotta talk 🫶

• NCQ is only enabled on Gen IIe controllers. like… only the IIe ones. that's the whole rule.
• Device hot swapping is not yet supported. do not pull the drive out, i'm begging you 😭
• Marvell's Software RAID is not supported by the ataraid(4) driver. raid(4) can be used instead. (this bullet is nested under that last thought in the original, and now you know why.)

also, real talk: this controller hardware is very old and pretty peculiar, with poor ATAPI support. It's very unlikely that the driver will receive any further changes — particularly not for the Gen I and Gen II controllers. Use an ahcisata(4) compatible controller instead. no cap, this is the actual advice in the man page 💀

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and that's the whole thing, bestie! this page is from Debian, dated October 24, 2018 — so yeah, vintage. take care of your ancient hardware, and remember: use ahcisata(4). mwah 💖 🎀 ✨