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PostPosted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 2:39 pm  Post subject: Hot swapping disks?
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Dead But Dreaming
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Well, I found many posts on this and it seemed like the right way for me to move in my storage. I couldnt really find a guide that spelled this all out so I will ask some questions :D . First, What kind of connection do I need to do this? Where does the plug go because I whanna make sure I can connect my disk :lol: I talked to a friend and he said that I would connect with a SATA cable because of the better speed compaired to USB so is this connection found on all PC?

Next, Is their any guide on how to make a disk to hot swap? I found something that showed a bunch of internal disks connected to each other then ran with SATA is this how its done? Any guide on making, connecting etcc... would rule!

Lastly, Is this better than an external? I could understand that the speed is like 4 times faster but is the life of the disks better? I guess with using internal disks they will last longer? Thanks alot :mrgreen:


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PostPosted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 2:58 pm  Post subject:
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you can only hot swap with SATA or SCSI, IDE hotswap is not supported. External is inferior, its much, much slower and far more prone to error from normal use. If you get one of these xyzGB boxes, they are usually cheap stock hard drives too.

There's not really anything to guide about. You plug it in, and then you pull the lever and put a hard drive in and then close the door.

Issues that can prevent internal hotswap:
* A crappy chipset that doesn't support hotswap
* An inability to use a screw driver
* erm... that's all i can think of.

I'm not quite sure what you'd need a guide for, its just like installing any other device in your pc. You take the side off, you slide it in, you screw it in, then you plug it in. Hotswap bays just go where your cd-drves go instead of the hdd caddy. where you'd usually put a hard drive.


You don't have to have a hot swap bay if you don't want, just makes it easier so you don't have to keep taking off the side and screwing/unscrewing hard drives. Essentially, to make a drive hot swap with a chipset that supports is, you go into device manager and you go to your hard drive and you check the buttons. Under you hard drives, go to the hard drive and click "Optimize for quick removal" under "Policies", and for your ide, under the channel you can uncheck the two cachine options/

To remove a drive, you'd do it just like any other hardware in windows by clicking safely remove hardware. In linux you can just use mount /dev/sata0 (or whatever the device is) and umount /dev/sata0 (or whatever the device is, giving it a name). If you use windows and linux, you can format with the ext3 fileformat and use XP drivers for that, that will mean you don't have to faff with ntfs linux drivers.

There's very little need for a guide over something that simple. If you mean you don't know how to attach a hard drive, its exactly how you would fit a CD-Rom drive, if you google there'll be some newbie guides for install hard drives/DVDrom drives/ etc. :)


btw, there's something called eSATA now with is an external SATA interface which is neat, but i would rather have a bay in my case rather than extra boxes lying all over my desktop.

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 3:07 pm  Post subject:
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ok I understand a bit more now! I would not like to screw and unscrew my pc ever call my crazy :lol: So with this bay it would connect to my computer then I wouldnt have to uncrew at all? I could just connect it in and let it stay on all day like an external disk? Is this how your doing it? Connecting a bunch of disks in a bay then using sata cable into your pc?


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PostPosted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 3:47 pm  Post subject:
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http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/sa ... takits.php this is what i was talking about! This is the bay that connects with SATA and uses internal disks right?


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PostPosted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 6:00 pm  Post subject:
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your crazy :p its a big simple box, it all plugs into one place and one place only. PC stores make vast amounts of money on the perception of what they are doing is in the slightest bit simple.

That enclosure you use esata so that's okay, but you need a motherboard that support it. Otherwise your going to be taking off the side of your case to add esata, either by an extender card or by replacing your motherboard and then you'll be back at square one.

Those removable bays you would screw your hdd into, which is okay and neat, but in the uk they don't actually sell any replacement caddies to the whole thing was stupid. So i switched to a trayless hot swap bay that i can just push a hdd into.

If you have eSATA plugs, great, if you don't then you can't use them. You can only use them internal to your pc case with normal SATA plugs.

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