smartd/smartctl with SATA HDDs behind SAS controller

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I hope someone will be able to help me out with this or point me in the right direction. I tried searching for a similar discussion but found none.

I am running a 32-bit RHEL 5.9 (2.6.18-348.3.1.el5xen) server that has a Promise 16-bay JBOD connected to a PCI Adaptec SAS HBA. The Promise JBOD has a mix of SAS and SATA 6G devices in it. My problem is specifically with the SATA drives. This JBOD supports SATA HDDs without the need for any type of adapter. (It should be noted that I did not have "-d sat" set in my smartd.conf originally. I changed that after reading up on the messages I was seeing in /var/log/messages.) When I configure SMARTD.conf to include the SATA drives, I see the following messages in /var/log/messages when SMARTD starts:

Nov 6 16:09:28 fileserver smartd[11722]: Device: /dev/sdi [SAT], opened
Nov 6 16:09:28 fileserver smartd[11722]: Device: /dev/sdi [SAT], WDC WD5003ABYX-01WERA1, S/N:WD-WMAYP4680298, WWN:5-0014ee-058bfee73, FW:01.01S02, 500 GB
Nov 6 16:09:28 fileserver smartd[11722]: Device: /dev/sdi [SAT], found in smartd database: Western Digital RE4 Serial ATA
Nov 6 16:09:28 fileserver smartd[11722]: Device: /dev/sdi [SAT], not capable of SMART Health Status check
Nov 6 16:09:28 fileserver smartd[11722]: Unable to register ATA device /dev/sdi [SAT] at line 40 of file /etc/smartd.conf
Nov 6 16:09:28 fileserver smartd[11722]: Device /dev/sdi [SAT] not available

When I run SMARTCTL against the same device from the shell, I receive the following output:

[16:17:04 root@fileserver ~ 1/4]# smartctl -d sat -H /dev/sdi
smartctl 5.42 2011-10-20 r3458 [i686-linux-2.6.18-348.3.1.el5xen] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-11 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
Error SMART Status command failed
Please get assistance from http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/
Register values returned from SMART Status command are:
ERR=0x00, SC=0x00, LL=0x00, LM=0x00, LH=0x00, DEV=0x00, STS=0x00
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
Warning: This result is based on an Attribute check.

In reading the man pages for both SMARTD and SMARTCTL, it seems as though smart should be able to read the health data from these drives. Am I hitting some other problem or am I missing something in configuring SMART to reported on these drives in this particular storage chassis?

(Please let me know if there are any relevant tags I should attach to this inquiry, too.)

Thanks in advance!

JK

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