Kernel support for QNAP TS-119 and TS-219 Turbo NAS in 2.6.30

My patch for initial kernel support for the QNAP TS-119 and TS-219 Turbo NAS got accepted and will be in 2.6.30. I can run Debian on a USB disk without any problems but there are some issues left (some severe, some cosmetic):

• SATA: there are long timeouts when initializing the disk. In most cases, the disk is eventually recognized but it can take quite some time. I've no idea why those timeouts happen.
• Flash: I can read from flash just fine but writing doesn't work.
• Parsing the MAC address: even though a MAC address is set in u-boot, the QNAP firmware stores the real MAC address in flash (similar to the TS-109 and TS-209). The TS-109/TS-209 code to read the MAC address doesn't work because the flash on the TS-219 is connected in a different way (SPI).
• SATA lights: the activity light doesn't work.

Unfortunately, I've no idea how to resolve these issues. However, the QNAP TS-119 and TS-219 have started shipping so hopefully someone else will investigate these issues.