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S-ATA drives, are they hot swappable? 1

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BaronSamedi

Technical User
Aug 19, 2004
34
AU
I was recently reading a website that claimed that the S-ATA standard means that all S-ATA drives are "hot swappable". Is this true or are hot-swappable S-ATA drives somehow different to standard S-ATA drives?
 
What you were probably reading about was "striped" drives in a server setup. The PC needs an operating system (located on the hard drive) to function. In "striped" setups, you have multiple hard drives to maintain an operating system. In a single drive system, you would lose the operating system. The other thing to look out for in "hot swapping", is power surges. If the drive is idle (floppy drive), no power is "read" when you unplug it. If some thing is using power when you unplug it, it will sometimes upset the power supply. I've had systems shut down when a fan comes unplugged.
 
I'm well aware that I need a RAID controller. What I am referring to is whether or not, if it is in a RAID array, is it possible that a bog standard, out of the box (formated, made part of the array, etc) disk is "hot-swappable" or does a specialised "hot-swappable" disk necessary?
 
The best bet is to ask the manufacturer of the drive & controller. I have heard of people doing this without problems, but I suspect most manufacturers won't recommend it unless the items were specifically designed as such. I asked Dell once upon a time, and for that specific case, they said no, but another TT member seems to be doing it - see thread485-945422.
 
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