eSATA enclosure, are they hot swappable like USB ?

[azev]

Can you hot swap eSATA enclosure with hardrive just like USB ? Or you have to shutdown before removing the drive connection ? (I will be using one of my internal sata controller with an a slot adapter)

Thanks

 

[ShockwaveVT]

Pretty sure SATA (including e-Sata) is a hot-swap protocol, like USB. Any SATA drive should appear on the "Safely Remove Hardware" system tray applet.

 

[SparkyJJO]

my internal SATA drive doesn't show up in there. Not in my previous system either. But then it is the main system drive too so I guess you can't really remove that

eSATA should from what I've heard.

 

[JAG87]

it is.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Depends on the controller it's connected to.

IIRC, SATA is a little pickier than USB about being truly "hot plugged" - just bluntly pulled from the port instead of Safely Remove Hardware, etc.

- M4H

 

[Jeff7]

It depends on your controller. I have a Gigabyte P965-DS3 motherboard. I don't remember which is which, orange or purple - I'll just assume one, so this is NOT accurate:
On the orange SATA connectors, my removable SATA drive doesn't show on the Safely Remove Hardware list.
On the purple connectors, it does show up.

It's my understanding that SATA is electrically OK for hot swap. The other issue is the write cache - if the write cache isn't disabled (either permanently in the drive's Properties window, or via Safely Remove Hardware), you could risk data loss. This will happen if the drive is powered down while something is still in the write cache. The other risk is data corruption - if some information concerning the MFT (master file table) or perhaps partition information is in the write cache when the drive loses power, then you'll be asking about data recovery software.


So, for the drive to appear in Safely Remove Hardware, it depends on your controller.

 

[ShockwaveVT]

on my P5NSLI all four SATA connectors show up on the Remove Hardware list, so like Jeff7 said it depends on the controller chip

 

[JAG87]

680i here and its hot plug

 

[Paperdoc]

Aside from the Safely Remove ... discussion, echo "It depends on your controller". You said you do NOT have a specific eSATA controller, but are using a slot adapter with an internal SATA connector. Some SATA controllers did NOT implement the Hot Swap feature in the SATA definitions, whereas those that explicitly provide an eSATA connection always do. And there's at least one other feature (I think it is max cable length) that may or may not be there in a plain-Jane SATA controller. So you MAY be able to Hot Swap, and maybe not - depends on what your controller does. Worst case: it does not work, and you have to reboot each time you change. (In other words, you cannot Hot Swap.)

 

[Boyo]

Just shut down the enclosure and then you have no worries.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Boyo
Just shut down the enclosure and then you have no worries.

You need to use the 'Safely Remove Hardware' icon in Windows before shutting a removable drive off or unplugging it from the system. Even if it supports hot-swap, pulling it without doing so can result in data loss due to disk writes still in the file cache but not flushed to disk.

If you disable write caching on a removable drive, you don't need to 'safely remove' it -- but if you pull it while something is actively writing to the drive, you can still get corrupted files.

 

[LIT4]

u turn key off,, open door and swap, then turn key on ,powers up ... i do it all the time

 

[vailr]

For eSATA "Hot Swap" to work without errors, I believe that the controller chip must support AHCI mode, and the HD setting in the motherboard bios is selected for AHCI mode.