Comment 7 for bug 477782

As suggested in bug report #153768, there really should be some way to configure by hand which SATA port is to be considered as eSATA. I personally have a simple SATA-to-eSATA bracket that "exports" two of my internal SATA ports. Hotplugging works like a charm up to the point at which the external disk is considered internal and the partitions are not automounted in gnome (and require password to mount from selection in "Places").