AHCI = Hot Swappable? (P35-DS3L)

[alfa147x]

I was wondering since my Motherboard supports AHCI if I got this:
http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0266839

I could Hot Swap drive in?

Thanks,
Alfa147x

 

[alaricljs]

AHCI don't mean ***. The SATA chipset needs to support hotswap, AHCI does have to be turned on for it to work though. I was bored, so I looked up your motherboard and it only has the on-board ICH9. No hotswap for you.

 

[tcsenter]

Gigabyte implements AHCI on its ICH9 boards but its only supported under Windows Vista and later.

 

[adamantinepiggy]

Even if a Mboard/OS supports hot swapping via AHCI, it doen't always work reliably. I have a win7 system i use at work to make and restore images to SSD's and hard drives. The drives get hot swapped constantly. 90% of the time it works fine. The other 10%, the PC will suddenly just stop recognizing anything new getting plugged on the SATA ports and have to be rebooted. I do probably hot swamp more than most because of this machine's function.

 

[alfa147x]

Thanks guys

 

[RebateMonger]

http://www.gigabyte-usa.com/Support...?ProductID=2629&ost=windows+7+32bit#anchor_os

"To enable hot plug capability for the SATA connectors controlled by the ICH9 South Bridge, you must install Windows Vista (on ICH9, hot plug is supported in Windows Vista only) and configure the SATA connectors for AHCI mode. (Refer to manual Chapter 2, "BIOS Setup," "Integrated Peripherals," for details on enabling AHCI.)"

Honestly, I've only used Intel's AHCI mode for SATA hotswap on a couple of motherboards. So far, those have worked fine. But I've used a TON of SATA hotswap on servers (using Silicon Image add-in SATA cards) and have found those extremely reliable. I have clients who've been hotswapping backup disks weekly for four years now without a single failure to recognize the addition or removal of a disk.

If you can't get hotswap to work with Intel's AHCI (or don't want to change the mode of your Intel disk controller, then consider picking up a $10 or $20 Silicon-Image-based SATA disk controller. You plunk it in and install the drivers (if Windows doesn't contain the drivers) and bingo---hotswap.

 

[zagood]

Or just download hotswap! Simple program, works well.
http://mt-naka.com/hotswap/index_enu.htm