How to find out if my backplane is hot-swappable? 1

[Speaker]

Sorry, this isn't a Dell-specific question, but the server is home-built and I didn't know where else to post this.

I just joined a company that uses all home-grown servers. They're using one as a backup server (Win2K Server), with six SCSI HDDs in it. They want to remove one each day or so (for off-site storage) but receive this message: "You have unplugged or ejected a device without stopping it. Unplugging or ejecting devices without first stopping them yadda crashes yadda yadda loss of data."

Then it says to first use the hardware wizard in Control Panel to stop the device. There is also a checkbox to have Windows put an icon on the task bar to eject the device. The icon looks like a PCMCIA card with a green arrow above it. But the hardware wizard doesn't give me a choice to stop the devices, and the icon doesn't appear on the task bar when I check the box.

I watched the boot process to see if the backplane was hot-swappable (the Dell servers that I'm used to working with show the firmware version and warn if it's not hot-swappable) but there is no listing of SCSI controller, firmware version... nothing but a RAM check and the Western Digital HDDs, then it goes to Windows.

I checked Device Manager and under SCSI and RAID Controllers it lists:
WinXP (huh?) Promise SATA150TX Series IDE (huh?) Controller
This is listed twice.

So my question is, how do I find out what backplane is in the server? If I have to drag it down off the top of the rack and open it up, I can, but I'd rather not if there is a some other way to tell. If I open it up will there be a clear label that I can look up to see if that model is hot-swappable?

TIA

 

[jkupski]

Your system doesn't have a SCSI controller because the disks are serial ATA. Given that, I think it's fair to assume that whatever the backplane is, its just a passive device--it won't enumerate as a device on the bus, it just exists to serve as a passthrough for power and data.

You're going to have to get a better idea of just what you have in that system--Promise's website shows a couple of different cards based on the S150 TX family. One supports two channels, one supports four. The four channel card claims to support hot swapping when the array is configured as RAID1 or RAID10. The two channel card makes no mention of hot swapping as a feature, but provides enclosures that WILL allow hotswapping with that card.

Your best bet is to talk this out with the manufacturer. Their website is at

http://www.promise.com,

or you can call them at (408) 228-1400, or email tech support at support@promise.com

 

[Speaker]

Thanks. There is no RAID configured (just six disks that they use as the target for the backups--a different one each day) so even if it was the four-channel card it would do no good. I'll contact promise, but you've saved me from getting dusty.

Thanks again