eSATA hard drive question.

[de8212]

I was under the impression eSATA works just like USB in the was that you could plug/unplug it while th epc was running and it would show up. I have an antec MX-1 enclosure with a 1TB drive in it. Just built a new pc yesterday and when I plugged it in, it wasn't recognized. Rebooted and it's fine. Is this normal?

Also, I know it's a personal preference but do you generally leave your externals on all the time or power them off? I had to put mine under my desk (eSATA cable too short to go where I wanted) and it would be a pain to have to reach down and hit the switch to turn on/off.

 

[santz]

I don't even have an e-sata part, sorry.

 

[Binky]

Make sure you have the drivers installed for whatever is running that esata port. It could be your intel chipset, or it could be something like a jmicron controller chip that also runs an IDE port. You may need AHCI enabled if it's the intel chipset driving it. This can be tricky on an existing windows install.

 

[de8212]

Just to make sure I understand. The eSATA backplate is plugged into one of the yellow sata ports on the mobo. Same as both of my internal sata drives. So, why would another driver be needed since the ports seem to be fine? Granted, I haven't loaded the CD that came with the motherboard yet but I had no conflicts in Device Manager and iut was late last night when I finished the install. I can look on gigabyte's site and see if they list new chipset drivers.

But, in the end, am I correct to assume that eSATA drives are "hot swappable"? You should be able to unplug them while windows is running and plug back in later and the drive contents would show up, right?
And I have heard bits and pieces about AHCI. Seems I remember reading that is can screw up a system if Windows has already been installed.

 

[Elixer]

Originally posted by: de8212
Just to make sure I understand. The eSATA backplate is plugged into one of the yellow sata ports on the mobo. Same as both of my internal sata drives. So, why would another driver be needed since the ports seem to be fine? Granted, I haven't loaded the CD that came with the motherboard yet but I had no conflicts in Device Manager and iut was late last night when I finished the install. I can look on gigabyte's site and see if they list new chipset drivers.

But, in the end, am I correct to assume that eSATA drives are "hot swappable"? You should be able to unplug them while windows is running and plug back in later and the drive contents would show up, right?
And I have heard bits and pieces about AHCI. Seems I remember reading that is can screw up a system if Windows has already been installed.

Yes, all SATA drives support hot plugging. If your driver supports it, is another question.

If you have the drive listed in the "safely remove hardware" applet (or whatever it is called on win7) and it is listed there, then it should work as designed. As in, you plug it in, it detects it, then when you want to remove it, you go to that applet, and select the drive in question, and remove it.

 

[dawza]

If you don't feel like messing around with AHCI settings, an easy solution is to purchase a $15-$20 PCIe 1x SATA/eSATA card using a chipset that supports hot-swapping (i.e. the Silicon Image 3132).

Example: Monoprice

I have used several of these cards, and hot-swapping works perfectly.

I am sure others can give you more details on AHCI, and enabling it on an existing Windows installation.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Originally posted by: dawza
If you don't feel like messing around with AHCI settings, an easy solution is to purchase a $15-$20 PCIe 1x SATA/eSATA card using a chipset that supports hot-swapping (i.e. the Silicon Image 3132).

Example: Monoprice

I have used several of these cards, and hot-swapping works perfectly.

I am sure others can give you more details on AHCI, and enabling it on an existing Windows installation.

Good idea and link, I may need it also

 

[Modelworks]

You can hotplug any SATA drive. If the drive doesn't show on plugging it in then go to device manager in windows and scan for hardware changes and it will appear.