Removable IDE hard drives

[Dave Navarro]

I use removable IDE hard drives on several systems for data backup.

However, in order to swap drives, I have to power down the sytems
(running either Windows 2000 Server or Windows 2000 Professional).

Can someone point me to hot swappable removable IDE enclosures that work
with Windows 2000? All of the hot swappable ones I found only support
Windows 98 for some bizarre reason.

I don't want to use USB or firewire because it's too slow. I regularly
have to back up 200 gigs at once and with a USB 2.0 drive I bought it
takes 12+ hours to run a full backup and eats up tons of CPU cycles.

Thanks!

--Dave

 

[JAD]

200 gigs? tape drive is in order here. Hot swapping IDE? although I
have seen conversions from IDE to fire/USB2 enclosures, then being
able to swap, I have never heard of 'hot' swapping IDE.

 

[Al Dykes]

I use removable IDE hard drives on several systems for data backup.

However, in order to swap drives, I have to power down the sytems
(running either Windows 2000 Server or Windows 2000 Professional).

Can someone point me to hot swappable removable IDE enclosures that work
with Windows 2000? All of the hot swappable ones I found only support
Windows 98 for some bizarre reason.

I don't want to use USB or firewire because it's too slow. I regularly
have to back up 200 gigs at once and with a USB 2.0 drive I bought it
takes 12+ hours to run a full backup and eats up tons of CPU cycles.

Thanks!

--Dave

SATA disks are designed to be hotswapped, external backpack cases
and PCI backplates that bring the SATA connector out of the case
are available.

I'm looking at it, but based on other messages in this group
it's not quite ready for prime time.

 

[Dave Navarro]

Tape drive is too slow and they don't hold enough data.

Dell sells servers with hot swappable IDE drives and I've seen a number
of enclosures that support Windows 98/ME.

USB2 and Firewire are just too slow.

--Dave

 

[Dave Navarro]

SATA disks are designed to be hotswapped, external backpack cases
and PCI backplates that bring the SATA connector out of the case
are available.

I'm looking at it, but based on other messages in this group
it's not quite ready for prime time.

Thanks. I'm thinking about using Gigabit Ethernet and a dedicated
external server set up for just backup. That way I don't have to reboot
the primary server itself in order to swap drives. It may be fast
enough.

--Dave

 

[John R Weiss]

I use removable IDE hard drives on several systems for data backup.

However, in order to swap drives, I have to power down the sytems
(running either Windows 2000 Server or Windows 2000 Professional).

Can someone point me to hot swappable removable IDE enclosures that work
with Windows 2000? All of the hot swappable ones I found only support
Windows 98 for some bizarre reason.

I don't want to use USB or firewire because it's too slow. I regularly
have to back up 200 gigs at once and with a USB 2.0 drive I bought it
takes 12+ hours to run a full backup and eats up tons of CPU cycles.

Hmmm... I don't know why it would be so slow; maybe you need to look into your
overall system setup.

I have a dual P3-550 running Win 2K Pro with SCSI U2 primary HDs. I use a
Firewire / external IDE drive for backup, though I only have to transfer about
20 GB. The backup runs very fast. The dual CPU setup allows me to continue
work on other apps while the backup copying process is running.

Firewire or USB2 are capable of 400+Mbps, and internal IDE only runs at 100 or
133 max. Though CPU cycles are an issue with IDE, it may be a driver problem
that slows down your USB connection; possibly it's actually running at USB 1.1
speed...

Consider using SCSI for your primary HDs to take the load off the CPU; the SCSI
controller takes over a lot of the work done by the CPU for IDE.

 

[Dave Navarro]

Hmmm... I don't know why it would be so slow; maybe you need to look into your
overall system setup.

I have a dual P3-550 running Win 2K Pro with SCSI U2 primary HDs. I use a
Firewire / external IDE drive for backup, though I only have to transfer about
20 GB. The backup runs very fast. The dual CPU setup allows me to continue
work on other apps while the backup copying process is running.

There's quite a bit of difference between 20 GB and 200 GB.

Firewire or USB2 are capable of 400+Mbps, and internal IDE only runs at 100 or
133 max. Though CPU cycles are an issue with IDE, it may be a driver problem
that slows down your USB connection; possibly it's actually running at USB 1.1
speed...

You must be confused... An ATA133 drive does not run at 133 Mbps...
That's the "bus speed", not the transfer rate. Try more like 1600 Mpbs
transfer rate for IDE.

I can backup 200 GB across the IDE channel in 2.2 hours. Compared to
12.6 hours using USB 2.0 (definitely USB 2.0, not 1.1).

--Dave