hot swap drive caddy question

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DarknessConcept

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ICY DOCK DuoSwap MB971SP-B 5.25

http://www.amazon.com/DuoSwap-MB971SP-B-Drive-Caddy-Docking/dp/B007Q4EZEA

I installed it this evening, and noticed that after turning off power to the 3.5 HDD that was placed inside the dock (WD red NAS 2tb), the drive was still showing up under Computer. I could access it and even read/write data to it. After about 3 minutes, the capacity information (used/remaining space bar and the text below that that says "x.xxtb free of x.xxtb") disappeared, but the drive name and assigned letter remained. Upon attempting to access the drive in this state, explorer stopped responding. I closed, re-opened Computer, and the drive appeared to be fully gone. I assumed it simply took some time for the drive to no longer be recognized by the system. Still, I thought this was strange because power to the drive had been cut and being able to read/write while the drive was in this state was not what I was expecting. I hit the power switch again, and the drive re-appeared instantly. I turned power back off, and this time it took nearly 40 minutes for the drive to become inaccessible via Computer. Now, I don't have a lot of experience with hot swap bays, but it would seem to me that this is unusual. Am I wrong? Also, I'm currently not comfortable ejecting the drive while it's in the "powered off but still accessible" state. Is this a warranted concern, or should I just power it down and eject it?
 
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Re your query 3)...It is unusual to say the least. When the drive is powered-off it no longer is accessible and immediately disappears from the system, i.e., it is no longer listed in Device Manager, Disk Management, Windows (File) Explorer, etc. Why the drive remains accessible in your situation is an anomaly. It would seem it's somehow related to your ICY DOCK device. Perhaps you should contact the manuf. for an explanation.
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Shaun o

Shaun o

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Oct 7, 2007
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Well disconnecting any drive while it is still spinning is a bad Idea.
You can cause read and write errors on the drive.
Even if you have a Caddy where you can swap drives.

When it says Hot docking it does not mean you can pull one drive out and replace it when it is powered in the dock.
The term means it is more easy to change a drive because it can be accessed via an external holder, physical external access point for insertion and removal.
To swap the drives in question.
Always after a right shutdown of the system.
Then remove or replace the drive for another.

And restart the system.

Other than the drive being screwed inside the chassis or case of your computer.
In both events you still have to cut power to the drives in use before removal of them.
Or potentially risk data corruption.

As all hard drives need to spin down, and lock there read and write heads of the drive by a sequence of commands before power is lost instructed by the computer to do so on shut down.
And to initialize each drive on first power up of them.

It`s what I was taught when using hard drives in a external caddy access bay of a system.
That`s my take on it anyway.

Thats why you have the option in windows to disconnect a usb drive for example from windows.
Because it sends a signal to the drive to power down, stop the disk platter from spinning, and park the read and write heads of a drive before removal.

And speaks for it`s self.

Hard drives have to follow and Initialization sequence and a shut down Sequence before power is cut.
You should never pull a drive if this has not been performed, or you will corrupt data on the drive in question.
 
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DarknessConcept

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I understand that ejecting the drive while it's still spinning is a bad idea. But at the same time, cutting power on the bay should serve this function, should it not? My current feeling is that ejecting the drive once it is no longer showing up on my drive list is fine (I just don't understand why it is staying accessible for such a long period of time after power is cut). I do however find it hard to believe that I would have to perform a system restart to send initialization and shut down sequences to the drives, because that is contrary to the very definition of hot swapping:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_swapping

 
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xoiio

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ArtPog

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Three points at the outset...
1. I'm assuming that the drive you were working with and having the problem you described was a secondary HDD, not your boot drive. Obviously if you powered-off your boot drive the system at that point would no longer be viable.
2. Your BIOS setting reflects "hot plugging" enabled.
3. I've never worked with that particular ICY DOCK model so I'm unfamiliar with its capabilities (or lack of!).

You are correct that powering-off the mobile rack should pose no problem along the lines you described. We've been working with mobile racks for more than 15 years now and all the desktop PCs we build are equipped with them.

We've powered-on/powered-off both HDDs & SSDs (again, we're talking about SECONDARY drives) perhaps thousands of times without running into problems. It's become pretty much a routine operation for us since we work with a variety of HDDs/SSDs.

BTW, the mobile rack we've been working with for many years is the Athena Power MR-125PB currently selling at $19.99 + 2.99 shipping. See...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817995104

We've probably installed more than 200 of those removable HDD mobile racks over the years and have encountered very few problems with them. Note each rack with its removable tray (caddy) can accommodate only a single drive unlike your ICY DOCK device which apparently accommodates two drives. We prefer the removable tray/caddy device since we're frequently installing/uninstalling different drives in the rack and this gives us enormous flexibility.

We've tried to encourage PC users to equip their desktop machines with one or more removable HDD/SSD devices (mobile racks). In our experience once a user works with removable HDD/SSD devices it's rare that that he/she would ever want to return to fixed internally-connected drives.
 
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jsmithepa

jsmithepa

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Jun 14, 2014
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Am skeptical myself whether SATA can really be hot-swapped, but I will take ArtPog's words for it.

Unplugging a drive and have Windows hang is definitely not a good sign. Again, maybe u have to set it in BIOS?

Myself, I've been looking for something more modest, just being able to remove the HDDs, after powering off the cpu, without having to open the box and fuss with cables, like those nice "blade servers" in data center. For that purpose I have been looking for an external box with levers built into the cage (push button don't work good), or caddies with built-in handles for leverage.
 
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ArtPog

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All I can do is reiterate what I've already stated re hot/swapping - hot plugging. We've been working with scores of different makes/models of PCs over many years. We've powered-on/powered-off HDDs/SSDs probably over thousands of times during these years and I'm hard-pressed to think of a single problem we encountered because of this process.

Understand we do not physically attach/detach power & data cables to the SATA drives, rather, as I have indicated, we work with removable HDD/SSD devices, i.e., mobile racks installed in the desktop PC. A simple press of the power button on the mobile rack powers-on or powers-off the secondary HDD or SSD.

 
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The Original Ralph

The Original Ralph

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i've been using one of these http://www.ebay.com/itm/Kingwin-KF-251-BK-2-5-Dual-Bay-SATA-Internal-Hot-Swap-Rack-w-Keylock-/231526270557?hash=item35e80a865d:g:gPAAAOSwnipWZfMN. It holds two SSDs or 2.5" HDDs, and occupies a 3.5" opening

what artpog said about once you install one and use it, you'll never have a computer without one, i agreen entirely

as i'm running SSDs, when i want to remove a drive i hit the "safely remove hardware" function - if for some reason it comes back the device is in use by another program, i wait until i can turn off the computer to remove

fwiw
 
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DarknessConcept

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ArtPog:

1) Correct, this is not a boot drive.

2) Yes, hot swap is enabled in my bios.

3) Is it unusual in your experience to have a drive remain accessible and read/writable for such a long time after turning off power to it via the caddy's power button?

Jsmithepa:

"Unplugging a drive and have Windows hang is definitely not a good sign."

Well that's not technically what happened. I noticed after powering down the drive that it remained accessible in explorer. After some time, the capacity information listed with the drive disappeared but the drive remained listed. Double clicking on it to access it (out of curiosity) while in this state is what caused explorer to stop responding. Windows itself did not hang.
 
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ArtPog

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Re your query 3)...It is unusual to say the least. When the drive is powered-off it no longer is accessible and immediately disappears from the system, i.e., it is no longer listed in Device Manager, Disk Management, Windows (File) Explorer, etc. Why the drive remains accessible in your situation is an anomaly. It would seem it's somehow related to your ICY DOCK device. Perhaps you should contact the manuf. for an explanation.
 
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