hot swaping drives

[Jim Burton]

My motherboard has SATA connections
I have a number of old IDE disks and a PATA removable caddy

I would like to know if I purchased a SATA to IDE adapter to connect a SATA
port on the motherboard to the caddy could I then safely hot swap IDE disks
in the caddy ?

Regards & TIA

 

[Noozer]

My motherboard has SATA connections
I have a number of old IDE disks and a PATA removable caddy

I would like to know if I purchased a SATA to IDE adapter to connect a
SATA
port on the motherboard to the caddy could I then safely hot swap IDE
disks
in the caddy ?

What OS are you running? Window XP doesn't support hotswapping PATA drives
at all.

 

[Jim Burton]

Oh Dear ... XP Pro .... so that's the end of that idea

 

[kony]

Oh Dear ... XP Pro .... so that's the end of that idea

Not necessarily, you can swap drives hooked up to some
discrete controllers, but it is because the separate
controller is designed to accomodate it. In such cases the
drive needs to be unplugged from the bus before power, and
*new* drive plugged into power before bus... the idea being
you dont' want an (electrically) dead device on the bus.

As for whether an PATA adapter would allow it, may depend
largely on whether you could've done same with an SATA
drive, though there are no guarantees.

 

[philo]

My motherboard has SATA connections
I have a number of old IDE disks and a PATA removable caddy

I would like to know if I purchased a SATA to IDE adapter to connect a SATA
port on the motherboard to the caddy could I then safely hot swap IDE disks
in the caddy ?

If you want "hot swap" get a USB2 external enclosure

 

[paulmd]

My motherboard has SATA connections
I have a number of old IDE disks and a PATA removable caddy

I would like to know if I purchased a SATA to IDE adapter to connect a SATA
port on the motherboard to the caddy could I then safely hot swap IDE disks
in the caddy ?

Regards & TIA

There is such thing as a hot swap caddy for IDE drives.You can even
get away with pulling out the ribbon cable and power cable while the
computer is live. But it's not really a great idea.

You can probably do it with USB.

 

[Noozer]

There is such thing as a hot swap caddy for IDE drives.You can even
get away with pulling out the ribbon cable and power cable while the
computer is live. But it's not really a great idea.

But XP does NOT support hotswapping IDE drives. Windows 98 does though.

There is no option on an IDE hard drive to disable write caching, etc. so
you can never be sure if Windows still has something to put onto the drive.

 

[Jim Burton]

Is it just a question of flushing the write cache that will make it unsafe
..... or is there an electrical problem with spikes etc when switching off
the power to a drive in the caddy ?

 

[paulmd]

Is it just a question of flushing the write cache that will make it unsafe
.... or is there an electrical problem with spikes etc when switching off
the power to a drive in the ca

Both.

 

[Jim Burton]

There is such thing as a hot swap caddy for IDE drives.You can even
get away with pulling out the ribbon cable and power cable while the
computer is live. But it's not really a great idea.

You can probably do it with USB.

OK - Do you know if there are any internal PATA HDD caddies available ?

 

[Jim Burton]

But XP does NOT support hotswapping IDE drives. Windows 98 does though.

There is no option on an IDE hard drive to disable write caching, etc. so
you can never be sure if Windows still has something to put onto the
drive.

In Device Manager/ Disk drives/Properties there is an option to disable
Write Caching !!!

 

[Noozer]

But XP does NOT support hotswapping IDE drives. Windows 98 does though.

In Device Manager/ Disk drives/Properties there is an option to disable
Write Caching !!!

You mean the performance options, that are greyed out?

 

[kony]

Is it just a question of flushing the write cache that will make it unsafe
.... or is there an electrical problem with spikes etc when switching off
the power to a drive in the caddy ?

The cache issue is significant but it can be done with IDE
on (SCSI-like) discrete controllers as you'd find on PCI
cards.

Removing or plugging in a drive can cause power
fluctuations, but this is more of a reason to have a decent
power supply than not to do it... even turning on an system
or having a drive wake up from being asleep will cause a
power fluctuation.

 

[Jim Burton]

You mean the performance options, that are greyed out?

No ... in the individual Disk Drive properties under the policy tab

 

[Jim Burton]

The cache issue is significant but it can be done with IDE
on (SCSI-like) discrete controllers as you'd find on PCI
cards.

Removing or plugging in a drive can cause power
fluctuations, but this is more of a reason to have a decent
power supply than not to do it... even turning on an system
or having a drive wake up from being asleep will cause a
power fluctuation.

I have a new Zalman Power ATX12v ver 2.2 Noisless Switching Power Supply
.....
Not sure how this rates in the decency stakes
Is it good enough ?
and I were to disable write caching ... do you think it would be safe ?

 

[Noozer]

No ... in the individual Disk Drive properties under the policy tab

My mistake... That's where I meant. All greyed out here. I can't change it.

You do know that driver letters, and file caches won't be refreshed when you
swap an IDE drive, right?

Take a drive out that has one partition, insert a drive with two partitions,
Windows won't see the new letter and will assume that the file allocation
table it has from the first drive is still valid.

 

[DaveW]

IDE disks are NOT hot-swappable.

 

[Noozer]

IDE disks are NOT hot-swappable.

Actually, they are if the right hardware is present AND the OS supports it.

The PATA drive bays I have here are certified for hot swapping normal IDE
drives in Windows 98, since 98 would support it.

The tray has a lock preventing inserting/removing the drive while still
powered on. Open the lock and the drive is powered down. Pull the drive,
insert a new one and close the lock and the new drive is powered up.

The problem with this under XP is that it doesn't expect the drive to
change, so it won't do anything when the new drive is installed. It still
tries to access the old files using the file allocation table from the old
drive. It's not smart enough to refresh it's view of the drive.

 

[kony]

I have a new Zalman Power ATX12v ver 2.2 Noisless Switching Power Supply
....
Not sure how this rates in the decency stakes
Is it good enough ?
and I were to disable write caching ... do you think it would be safe ?

.... you don't mention the capacity or what it's powering so
we'd have some basis for assumign a decent transient
response, but in general it is a decent brand of PSU.

As for whether it's safe, I would be more comfortable having
you try it and see with worthless data instead of finding
out later there was a problem. It's "supposed" to be
supported by some controllers but a lot of things are
"supposed" to work right but too few people do it and there
isn't enough data about what kinds of problems may arise in
certain configurations.

 

[Jim Burton]

Actually, they are if the right hardware is present AND the OS supports
it.

The PATA drive bays I have here are certified for hot swapping normal IDE
drives in Windows 98, since 98 would support it.

The tray has a lock preventing inserting/removing the drive while still
powered on. Open the lock and the drive is powered down. Pull the drive,
insert a new one and close the lock and the new drive is powered up.

The problem with this under XP is that it doesn't expect the drive to
change, so it won't do anything when the new drive is installed. It still
tries to access the old files using the file allocation table from the old
drive. It's not smart enough to refresh it's view of the drive.

Does this mean that if a USB connected drive was hot swapped the FAT
wouldn't be refreshed or does XP realise that USB drives are 'Removable'