Delock 91660 (sATA-to-CF) has quirks and issue

[DiTBho]

Two weeks ago I bought four Delock 91660 units from a local store by they arrived yesterday.

Today I found they all have quirks and issue with sATA controllers
- with VIA: doesn't work
- with SIL: doesn't work
- with Manathan USB-to-sATA: doesn't work
- with some ARM built-in sATA link: it works perfectly

What do I mean with "it doesn't work"?
I mean this:

Code: [Select]

Buffer I/O error on dev sdc, logical block 0, async page read
sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE
sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Sense Key : Illegal Request [current]
sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Add. Sense: Logical block address out of range
sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 00
blk_update_request: critical target error, dev sdc, sector 0
Buffer I/O error on dev sdc, logical block 0, async page read
sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE
sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Sense Key : Illegal Request [current]
sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Add. Sense: Logical block address out of range
sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 00
blk_update_request: critical target error, dev sdc, sector 0
Buffer I/O error on dev sdc, logical block 0, async page read
sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE
sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Sense Key : Illegal Request [current]
sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Add. Sense: Logical block address out of range
sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 00
blk_update_request: critical target error, dev sdc, sector 0
Buffer I/O error on dev sdc, logical block 0, async page read

There is no particular note in the manual, the item is described as a "transparent" adapter

This internal Delock Compact Flash to SATA board enables you to connect a CF card type I/II and Microdrive, which can be used as a hard disk. The CF card works as additional storage space as well as HDD for an operating system from which you can also boot.

... but it seems it has quirks with some sATA controllers, not yet clear what and why.

I don't think I'll be returning my four drives, I'll investigate why they don't work with PC-sATA controllers, luckily I need to adapt compact flash cards from digital cameras to built-in ARM cards and for this task it just works, however I don't recommend this drive for no future purchases.

[DiTBho]

Tested with Linux k4.4.*, k5.15.*

[Nominal Animal]

Which JMicron JM203xx series chip does it use?

CompactFlash is based on old parallel ATA (IDE) interface, so the chip is basically a SATA-PATA bridge chip.  If it is JM20330, it only supports SATA 1.0a, which could explain the problems...  Most PC SATA chipsets are SATA 3.x, and although SATA is supposed to be downwards compatible, I don't think any of them have actually tested to be.

Looking at the CompactFlash Wikipedia page, NCQ (Native Command Queuing) is likely the issue.  Could you check if setting  libata.force=noncq  in the kernel command line (in your bootloader) fixes the issue?