S
Stan Shankman
SATA drives in the cosmos . . . I don't use no stinking drive sleds . . .
Let me tell you all a little story.
One day a while back, (Once upon a time). I helped a friend setup a new
motherboard. - It was actually a new case, power supply and motherboard. I
was interested in seeing that the guy was using IDE racks and all of his
hard drives were on sleds. I was aware of this type of hardware, but never
thought it was for me, mainly because I thought one had to shutdown the
computer to swap out a drive and since I was already doing that, and had
setup my case and IDE cables to facilitate quick swapping, I saw no need for
removable drive bays. But then he told me "Oh yeah, you can hot-swap too!
You can just yank out a drive, and plug in a new one any time you want."
Wow! Now that did interest me. I didn't know you could do that. I liked the
idea, and so, on the next opportunity I picked up some drive racks and
sleds. I installed them in my system. I ended up with less than satisfactory
results. You see, the sleds I got would only support ATA-66, and my drives
were ATA-133 (Extended LBA required) so the system didn't know how to get
around the 137 GB limit for drive capacity, and when the system first
started, Windows 2000 launched Check Disk which caused some files to
disappear. As I researched the problem, I came to learn, amongst other
things, that I was right in the first place; you can't hot-swap IDE
peripherals. And so, as usual, my friend was talking from some cosmic la-la
land. I soon put my collection of drive bays and sleds up for sale. Giving
up on the notion of hot-swapping IDE, but the experience kindled a fire in
me that just wouldn't go out, I knew that I wanted hot-swap capability, and
was determined to get it.
As an aside, I have since learned that you actually can hot-swap IDE drives
with certain software support. Check out www.driveswap.com the makers of
DriveSwap32 software. There is, supposedly, also a way to manipulate a DOS
tool to dismount and mount drives, but I never followed up on that.
Instead, since I was in the process of building up a new computer anyway
and since SATA drives are hot-pluggable, I figured that that would be the
best way to go. (My new computer would be an Athlon 32-bit CPU on a new Asus
A7V600 motherboard running Windows XP Pro.)
I bought Samsung 250MB SATA-II drives. I'm fond of Samsung drives, as I have
never had a problem with one, and in looking at the machining on their
cases, and the over all attention-to-detail I see, I think they are better
constructed than other drives I have seen. Before Samsung, I was always a
Seagate kind of guy. And don't get me wrong, I have never had a problem with
a Seagate drives either, it's just that Samsung is a wee bit cheaper and as
I said, the drives look excellent, so recently, that is what I have been
using.
As I built my new computer, I figured on putting my drives in "sleds" and
mounting a couple of "Drive Bays". So I started researching the web again
for more information.
At first, I became confused by much of what I was reading. I think some of
this confusion stemmed from the fact that many people are only familiar with
Windows 98, or Windows 2000, and not Windows XP or XP Pro. It was difficult
for me to keep the operating systems separated in my mind - or at least in
the beginning I paid little attention to the flavor of Windows I was
conversing about. I have since come to believe that Windows XP is the only
truly hot-swap friendly OS. (But I must admit that this point is not totally
clear to me. Will Windows 2000 support hot-swap SATA?)
I have also discovered that SATA information is (surprisingly) not easy to
come by - which is why I am posting this little write-up - to help some of
you get started.
What I wanted to do, was make sure that the removable drive bays I purchase
are compatible with SATA-II drives - even though the controller on the new
Asus motherboard is supposedly only a SATA-I controller, I planned on
collecting a good many drive sleds, and I wanted to make sure that my
investment would be useful in the future when SATA-II controllers become
prevalent. - Incidentally, the 250MB Samsung SATA-II drives have jumper-pins
used to switch the drive from SATA-II to SATA-I. At this time, I have those
jumpers installed on all my drives.
And so what more did I need to know before proceeding to purchase hardware?
Well I wasn't sure. But I figured the best way to find out, would be to
learn what others had already done. So, I searched the web, and made a few
Usenet postings, and I sent off a bunch of emails to various SATA drive and
controller companies (or at least the ones that advertise most prominently
on the internet). I sent emails to SATA drive and hardware web-based sellers
explaining what I was trying to do, and asked if there hardware would do the
trick. Oh man! It's unbelievable what a mixed bag of results I got! Mostly
people telling me I can't do it. Or that I would need special software or
that I would be better off using USB - all manner of worthless information.
And it seemed that most people were just blowing hot air. It made it
difficult to tell if someone actually knew what they were talking about, or
if they were speaking from some, uh - how should I say (?) . . . from some
*cosmic* point of view.
It's also extremely surprising to find just how few people actually want to
run hot-swap SATA drives. To me, drive exchanging, especially hot-swapping,
is the most useful way to deal with data overflow and backups. I have always
thought that anyone that does not backup to hard disk just doesn't
understand the economy and convenience of it. It's really the only way to
go.
Anyway, back to my story . . .
.. . . I finally found one person (on Usenet) that was talking from
experience. And was told that all I had to do was use SATA-II drives and put
them in SATA-II sleds and use Windows XP, and it would all just work! I was
told that no additional software was needed, and that no messages would be
emitted by the operating system. Just do it and it will work! - You can
imagine that, in light of all the "cosmic" information I had been receiving,
I was a little bit skeptical about it, so I batted a few messages back and
forth, and soon came to the conclusion that this person what legitimate, and
I believed everything I was told. I did however still have a few unanswered
questions: Since they were experienced with SATA-II drives, if was not clear
if the same results would hold for SATA-I drives. Also, it was not entirely
clear how much support was required from the SATA controller. I did learn
that in order to do hot-swapping, the controller must support it. And one is
constantly advised to "check with your motherboard manufacturer". Even this
I found hard to do. When I went to the Asus site, I downloaded the manual
for the motherboard, but that manual does not specifically say if the SATA
controller is hot-swappable or not. I looked around the site, and did not
find the information I was looking for. I even signed up for the "Forum",
and made a posting. - Man! What a cosmic play ground that is! If the
universe is expanding, it seems that most of these "cosmic thinkers" are not
expanding quite as rapidly.
Needless to say, I still had questions:
What is the difference between a SATA-I and a SATA-II drive bay? Why should
there be any difference at all? After all, if the SATA drive is by itself
hot-swappable, what function (other than pure convenience) would a drive
fixture serve? Why should a SATA-I drive bay not work with SATA-II? (If in
fact it really doesn't.)
I decided to bite the bullet, and try hot-swapping without the use of drive
sleds!
I walked up to my running XP Pro system, with a new SATA-II drive in hand. I
removed the cables from a running hard drive (obviously not the System
drive!) and move the cables over to the new drive while the system was still
running.
What do you think happened?
(Make your best guess, then look down for the answer.)
It worked!
Just as I was told, the old drive simply disappeared on Windows File
Explorer, and the new drive came online. No message, no fuss, no muss. It
just worked! Of course I had to run a quick Format on the new drive before I
could use it, but after that, I could just move the wires back and forth to
any of my SATA drives and they would work!
So apparently, (even though I never read it), the Asus A7V600 motherboard
does have a SATA controller that does support hot-swapping - and note that
it is not a SATA-II controller! (At least I don't think it is.)
I have since read that a signal (in the SATA controller cable) is used for
the "drive present" signal. This is no doubt instrumental in the hot-swap
process.
And the bottom line is . . .
.. . . I have decided not to even bother getting removable drive sleds! I
plan on leaving two SATA drives permanently mounted inside the computer case
(filling up both onboard SATA ports), and then add an additional SATA-II
controller (with external connector) to one of the PCI slots. I have also
seen advertised on the web, SATA power panels - just a simple little plate
that covers one of the PCI openings and has a connector on it used to send
power out of the case to an external SATA drive. (The cables come with the
plate.) That is what I now plan on doing. I will simply place my SATA drives
on top of the computer case (one at a time) and plug in the two cables. I
will copy my files, and then remove that temporary drive and put it back on
the shelf. Very simple. Right?
So you see? I don't need no stinking drive sleds!
But I will say this:
If a company came out with a drive fixture that would allow one to plug a
SATA drive into the front panel of a computer and do so in a very simple
manner, then I would consider getting that. I do not see the need for any
real "sleds", instead, just a simple slot to plug the actual bare drive
into. But if it is absolutely necessary to have, say, simple plastic strips
attached to each side of a drive, then that would be okay too. - Especially
if a large lot of these plastic strips came with the bay. Also, I see no
reason to push the drive deeply into the computer. To me it would be okay if
the drive hung out of the computer, by say, and inch or two. That way, one
could easily get there fingers on the drive. Of course, the actual
"protrusion depth" could easily be made *user adjustable*.
But until I find some reasonable hardware, I will be satisfied with my
"drive-on-top-of-the-computer" method.
You see? I don't need no stinking drive sleds!
end of story
- Stan Shankman
Let me tell you all a little story.
One day a while back, (Once upon a time). I helped a friend setup a new
motherboard. - It was actually a new case, power supply and motherboard. I
was interested in seeing that the guy was using IDE racks and all of his
hard drives were on sleds. I was aware of this type of hardware, but never
thought it was for me, mainly because I thought one had to shutdown the
computer to swap out a drive and since I was already doing that, and had
setup my case and IDE cables to facilitate quick swapping, I saw no need for
removable drive bays. But then he told me "Oh yeah, you can hot-swap too!
You can just yank out a drive, and plug in a new one any time you want."
Wow! Now that did interest me. I didn't know you could do that. I liked the
idea, and so, on the next opportunity I picked up some drive racks and
sleds. I installed them in my system. I ended up with less than satisfactory
results. You see, the sleds I got would only support ATA-66, and my drives
were ATA-133 (Extended LBA required) so the system didn't know how to get
around the 137 GB limit for drive capacity, and when the system first
started, Windows 2000 launched Check Disk which caused some files to
disappear. As I researched the problem, I came to learn, amongst other
things, that I was right in the first place; you can't hot-swap IDE
peripherals. And so, as usual, my friend was talking from some cosmic la-la
land. I soon put my collection of drive bays and sleds up for sale. Giving
up on the notion of hot-swapping IDE, but the experience kindled a fire in
me that just wouldn't go out, I knew that I wanted hot-swap capability, and
was determined to get it.
As an aside, I have since learned that you actually can hot-swap IDE drives
with certain software support. Check out www.driveswap.com the makers of
DriveSwap32 software. There is, supposedly, also a way to manipulate a DOS
tool to dismount and mount drives, but I never followed up on that.
Instead, since I was in the process of building up a new computer anyway
and since SATA drives are hot-pluggable, I figured that that would be the
best way to go. (My new computer would be an Athlon 32-bit CPU on a new Asus
A7V600 motherboard running Windows XP Pro.)
I bought Samsung 250MB SATA-II drives. I'm fond of Samsung drives, as I have
never had a problem with one, and in looking at the machining on their
cases, and the over all attention-to-detail I see, I think they are better
constructed than other drives I have seen. Before Samsung, I was always a
Seagate kind of guy. And don't get me wrong, I have never had a problem with
a Seagate drives either, it's just that Samsung is a wee bit cheaper and as
I said, the drives look excellent, so recently, that is what I have been
using.
As I built my new computer, I figured on putting my drives in "sleds" and
mounting a couple of "Drive Bays". So I started researching the web again
for more information.
At first, I became confused by much of what I was reading. I think some of
this confusion stemmed from the fact that many people are only familiar with
Windows 98, or Windows 2000, and not Windows XP or XP Pro. It was difficult
for me to keep the operating systems separated in my mind - or at least in
the beginning I paid little attention to the flavor of Windows I was
conversing about. I have since come to believe that Windows XP is the only
truly hot-swap friendly OS. (But I must admit that this point is not totally
clear to me. Will Windows 2000 support hot-swap SATA?)
I have also discovered that SATA information is (surprisingly) not easy to
come by - which is why I am posting this little write-up - to help some of
you get started.
What I wanted to do, was make sure that the removable drive bays I purchase
are compatible with SATA-II drives - even though the controller on the new
Asus motherboard is supposedly only a SATA-I controller, I planned on
collecting a good many drive sleds, and I wanted to make sure that my
investment would be useful in the future when SATA-II controllers become
prevalent. - Incidentally, the 250MB Samsung SATA-II drives have jumper-pins
used to switch the drive from SATA-II to SATA-I. At this time, I have those
jumpers installed on all my drives.
And so what more did I need to know before proceeding to purchase hardware?
Well I wasn't sure. But I figured the best way to find out, would be to
learn what others had already done. So, I searched the web, and made a few
Usenet postings, and I sent off a bunch of emails to various SATA drive and
controller companies (or at least the ones that advertise most prominently
on the internet). I sent emails to SATA drive and hardware web-based sellers
explaining what I was trying to do, and asked if there hardware would do the
trick. Oh man! It's unbelievable what a mixed bag of results I got! Mostly
people telling me I can't do it. Or that I would need special software or
that I would be better off using USB - all manner of worthless information.
And it seemed that most people were just blowing hot air. It made it
difficult to tell if someone actually knew what they were talking about, or
if they were speaking from some, uh - how should I say (?) . . . from some
*cosmic* point of view.
It's also extremely surprising to find just how few people actually want to
run hot-swap SATA drives. To me, drive exchanging, especially hot-swapping,
is the most useful way to deal with data overflow and backups. I have always
thought that anyone that does not backup to hard disk just doesn't
understand the economy and convenience of it. It's really the only way to
go.
Anyway, back to my story . . .
.. . . I finally found one person (on Usenet) that was talking from
experience. And was told that all I had to do was use SATA-II drives and put
them in SATA-II sleds and use Windows XP, and it would all just work! I was
told that no additional software was needed, and that no messages would be
emitted by the operating system. Just do it and it will work! - You can
imagine that, in light of all the "cosmic" information I had been receiving,
I was a little bit skeptical about it, so I batted a few messages back and
forth, and soon came to the conclusion that this person what legitimate, and
I believed everything I was told. I did however still have a few unanswered
questions: Since they were experienced with SATA-II drives, if was not clear
if the same results would hold for SATA-I drives. Also, it was not entirely
clear how much support was required from the SATA controller. I did learn
that in order to do hot-swapping, the controller must support it. And one is
constantly advised to "check with your motherboard manufacturer". Even this
I found hard to do. When I went to the Asus site, I downloaded the manual
for the motherboard, but that manual does not specifically say if the SATA
controller is hot-swappable or not. I looked around the site, and did not
find the information I was looking for. I even signed up for the "Forum",
and made a posting. - Man! What a cosmic play ground that is! If the
universe is expanding, it seems that most of these "cosmic thinkers" are not
expanding quite as rapidly.
Needless to say, I still had questions:
What is the difference between a SATA-I and a SATA-II drive bay? Why should
there be any difference at all? After all, if the SATA drive is by itself
hot-swappable, what function (other than pure convenience) would a drive
fixture serve? Why should a SATA-I drive bay not work with SATA-II? (If in
fact it really doesn't.)
I decided to bite the bullet, and try hot-swapping without the use of drive
sleds!
I walked up to my running XP Pro system, with a new SATA-II drive in hand. I
removed the cables from a running hard drive (obviously not the System
drive!) and move the cables over to the new drive while the system was still
running.
What do you think happened?
(Make your best guess, then look down for the answer.)
It worked!
Just as I was told, the old drive simply disappeared on Windows File
Explorer, and the new drive came online. No message, no fuss, no muss. It
just worked! Of course I had to run a quick Format on the new drive before I
could use it, but after that, I could just move the wires back and forth to
any of my SATA drives and they would work!
So apparently, (even though I never read it), the Asus A7V600 motherboard
does have a SATA controller that does support hot-swapping - and note that
it is not a SATA-II controller! (At least I don't think it is.)
I have since read that a signal (in the SATA controller cable) is used for
the "drive present" signal. This is no doubt instrumental in the hot-swap
process.
And the bottom line is . . .
.. . . I have decided not to even bother getting removable drive sleds! I
plan on leaving two SATA drives permanently mounted inside the computer case
(filling up both onboard SATA ports), and then add an additional SATA-II
controller (with external connector) to one of the PCI slots. I have also
seen advertised on the web, SATA power panels - just a simple little plate
that covers one of the PCI openings and has a connector on it used to send
power out of the case to an external SATA drive. (The cables come with the
plate.) That is what I now plan on doing. I will simply place my SATA drives
on top of the computer case (one at a time) and plug in the two cables. I
will copy my files, and then remove that temporary drive and put it back on
the shelf. Very simple. Right?
So you see? I don't need no stinking drive sleds!
But I will say this:
If a company came out with a drive fixture that would allow one to plug a
SATA drive into the front panel of a computer and do so in a very simple
manner, then I would consider getting that. I do not see the need for any
real "sleds", instead, just a simple slot to plug the actual bare drive
into. But if it is absolutely necessary to have, say, simple plastic strips
attached to each side of a drive, then that would be okay too. - Especially
if a large lot of these plastic strips came with the bay. Also, I see no
reason to push the drive deeply into the computer. To me it would be okay if
the drive hung out of the computer, by say, and inch or two. That way, one
could easily get there fingers on the drive. Of course, the actual
"protrusion depth" could easily be made *user adjustable*.
But until I find some reasonable hardware, I will be satisfied with my
"drive-on-top-of-the-computer" method.
You see? I don't need no stinking drive sleds!
end of story
- Stan Shankman