Hot swapping SATA drives?

TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
edited September 2012 in Hardware
Is there a way to hot swap SATA drives and have them work without restarting the computer?

When I have PCs in for work, most of the time a hard drive wipe or saving data is part of the job, and it is a real annoyance to plug in a SATA drive from another computer, restart the computer, do the work, then unplug it and restart the PC again to get it back to normal.

Any way to make the computer know it just gained or lost a drive and adapt automatically? Or type in a certain command and it reviews all the devices that are plugged in and reorganizes itself?

I recently started a ridiculously low paying IT job at a datacenter, and hot swap there seems to be no big deal, but it is mostly SCSI drives. And I'm sure they have differences that make hot swap a normal thing.

Comments

  • TushonTushon I'm scared, Coach Alexandria, VA Icrontian
    edited September 2012
    AHCI, plug in drive to SATA port, scan for changes in Device Manager if it doesn't automatically map
  • mertesnmertesn I am Bobby Miller Yukon, OK Icrontian
    Use an eSATA dock if you have the ports. USB otherwise.
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    I do have a USB adapter that has the connectors to plug into various drive interfaces. But half the time it doesn't work at all, even with restarting the computer. I'll check the AHCI setting.
  • PirateNinjaPirateNinja Icrontian
    Congratulations on the job! Even if it's low paying, if you are learning from it already then you are making yourself more valuable and opening doors. Do work Tim!
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    If you're going to be doing a lot of swapping drives out, do yourself a favor and get a SATA hot swap bay for your computer.

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816215120

    We use similar bays to swap drives out when we need to wipe or salvage data from them. They work great. If you're having hot swap issues, it's most likely in your BIOS settings or your OS. You don't need to have AHCI mode on for hot swapping to work, but there's really no reason not to use AHCI on modern systems.... provided you're actually USING a modern OS.
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited September 2012
    Windows 7 64 bit on my main PC.

    I checked the AHCI / IDE setting, and it was in IDE. When putting it in AHCI, it'd freeze as the Microsoft colors started to swirl around on the screen, so I put it back in IDE mode.

    From what I found on google, Windows 7 64 bit has AHCI support for Intel chipsets, but not AMD, which mine is, a 780 chipset. Asus M4A78. A special AHCI driver needs to be downloaded for it, but when I tried to get it, it would not load up right.
  • TushonTushon I'm scared, Coach Alexandria, VA Icrontian
    They both have AHCI support but installing it after imaging is tricky in my experience. You should be able to use any USB to SATA adapter without AHCI being turned on equally well. Plug in power, plug in USB, done.
  • shwaipshwaip bluffin' with my muffin Icrontian
    Yeah, changing to AHCI post-installation is a pretty big pain. I just use a usb-sata dock that lets me drop in the bare drive from the top.
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