Comment 32 for bug 387161

So, I discussed this with upstream:

<mezcalero> if we encounter an USB disk we try to find out if it speaks SAT
<mezcalero> we do that the hard way:
<mezcalero> by sending it some commands
<mezcalero> some shitty bridges tend to hang themselves up due to that
<mezcalero> or reset themselves
<mezcalero> there is not much we can do about that
<mezcalero> we had similar reports regarding usb sticks
<pitti> reportedly the drives pretty much stop working entirely, though
<mezcalero> because an usb stick does not look any different from a HDD drive to libatasmart
<mezcalero> so if you look into the udev rules of dk-disks
<mezcalero> there is now a check based on the disk *size* which disables ata smart
<mezcalero> this catches most of the broken usb sticks
<mezcalero> however, of coruse bridges for HDDs are not covered
<mezcalero> and we need to blacklist them all seperetely
<pitti> mezcalero: interestingly, though, the calls eventually succeed and report that the drive is smart capabl
<mezcalero> pitti: hmm, so yes, i am suggesting you add blacklist rules for this