Will this hot swap or not?

slowman

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Just a quick question. I'm trying to build my second computer ever. Am still watching holiday sales etc. for the best deals over next month. So far the only thing bought is the p180 case . Considering q6600,p35 depending on market, must step up within 3 weeks video card. The question, if I install one sata hd for the o/s internal and install 2 removeable sata hd bays from previous build. Can I hot swap the storage drives or must I power down first? Also best recommendation for the o/s drive as this will be new. Off to work check back later, thanks in advance for your help.
 

SomeJoe7777

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The Intel P35 AHCI driver implements NCQ, but does not implement hot-swap. If you want to hot-swap I recommend the Promise SATA300 TX4302 PCI card.
 

slowman

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Thanks for the reply SomeJoe777
If I understand this correctly, I would plug the removeable hd bay sata cables to the pci card. This would allow me to hot swap the storage drives?
 

SomeJoe7777

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Yes, that's correct. We do the same thing at my office for video editing machines, and take the caddys containing video editing projects back and forth between machines.
 

slowman

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Out of curiosity. If i use a m/b with e sata. Would that allow the caddy's to be hot swapped if plugged through the e sata ?
 

SomeJoe7777

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Depends on the driver. A lot of eSATA cards have a driver that implements hot-swap, but I've seen at least one (the eSATA compatible connector on the Intel P35 motherboards) that does not - go figure.
 

niz

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..also you need to make sure your removeable bays are intended to be used for hot-swap. Hot-swap compatable bays are designed to mechnically disconnect the data lines slightly before the power lines to avoid nasty power surges going down the data lines.
 

carver_g

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Out of curiosity, what technology are you referring to? I'm looking at an SCA drive and cage right now and all 80 pins are precisely in line; they all plug and unplug at the same time. Are you talking about SAS?