Hot Swap SATA drives - is it really OK?

[Ian R]

Hi

I have an ASUS A8N-SLI Premium mobo with a mix of IDE + SATA drives.

I recently added a trayless SATAII mobile rack (ICY-BOX IB-169) and I use a
couple of Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 for removable backups.

Now I know that SATA is supposed to allow hot swap and the trayless rack
supports it but theres a caveat implied i.e. as long as the mobo and drive
support it.

I feel a little nervous pulling a drive from a live system so thought I'd
double check here first!

Thanks for any info.

Ian

 

[Arno Wagner]

Hi

I have an ASUS A8N-SLI Premium mobo with a mix of IDE + SATA drives.

I recently added a trayless SATAII mobile rack (ICY-BOX IB-169) and I use a
couple of Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 for removable backups.

Now I know that SATA is supposed to allow hot swap and the trayless rack
supports it but theres a caveat implied i.e. as long as the mobo and drive
support it.

I feel a little nervous pulling a drive from a live system so thought I'd
double check here first!

Thanks for any info.

The problem is more likely with plugging than unplugging.
In both cases you are unlikely to damage the drive, but may
damage the data on unplug. If you umount or savely remove
(depending on OS), that risk is not present anymore.

For hot-plugging, the worst that should happen, is that the drive
is not recognised and you have to reboot to access it.

Arno