Well I have had success with this. On an RPI 4 with an and I used Raspberry Pi OS 2021-01-11, as you need to a particular setting in the eeprom. All the information about what I did can be found here
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/bcm2711_bootloader_config.md a link that was already mentioned
You use
$ sudo -E rpi-eeprom-config --edit
to edit the eeprom and add this to the bottom
[config.txt]
gpio=25,25=op,dh
gpio=26,26=op,dh
Then save and exit. This sets the gpio pin to be outputs and set to high in the eeprom then because of the 20 second time out for USB MSD devices there is enough time for the devices to power up and boot from. this is how my setup is now. ( I have the first get quad sata hat) but it really shouldn’t make a difference
Before rebooting you also have edit the /usr/bin/rockpi-sata/misc.py and remove turning disks off. If you have install the rockpi-sata service otherwise when you restart the rockpi-sata service it kills your system drive. I just commented out the set_mode low
def disk_turn_off():
# set_mode(26, GPIO.LOW)
time.sleep(0.5)
# set_mode(25, GPIO.LOW)
Let me know if anyone needs more details.