coraid is pleased to release an intel ahci driver for the 63xxesb chipset. it's available at /n/sources/patch/sd63xxesb.
this driver supports hotplugging including suprise removal for all 6 ports. in phoenixbios you need to enable sata and enhanced mode but do not need to enable ahci. your bios may vary. the 63xxesb hardware appears to perform well. with samsung spinpoint drives, i was able to exceed 80MB/s read with little system load. the driver also has atapi support code, but this is untested except by sata analyzer. (i don't have a sata cdrom.) i believe the varients of ich7/ich9 which support ahci should also be supported if you add the did for the device in question. i did add did 0x27c[45] for the 82801g[bh]m (ich7) controller. this device is untested. - erik
