Hot Swap SATA Drives Problem

[owensdj]

I'm trying to use a set of internal SATA drives for backups on Windows Server 2003 SP2. The SATA drives are in hot swap trays that can be inserted into a mobile rack. The rack connects to the motherboard using a standard SATA data cable.

The drives in the trays seem to work fine, but I'm having problems getting them to be hot swappable. When I took out one of the trays and inserted another to format the hard drive in it, the system reset.

What do I need to do to make this work? I was assuming SATA II drives and motherboard chipsets supported hot swapping. The board has an Intel 5000V (Blackford-VS) chipset and Enterprise South Bridge 2. The mobile rack is a Kingwin KF-811, and the SATA II drives are Western Digital 160GB WD1600JS.

 

[Blain]

I got that you're NOT using the hot swap drive in a RAID array...
Did you try loading RAID drivers for the MB?

 

[RebateMonger]

I always use Silicon Image chipset-based PCI or PCI-E SATA controller cards for hotswappable backup drives. Those work fine. Many onboard SATA controllers don't handle hotswapping properly.

 

[owensdj]

Blain, no the motherboard RAID drivers aren't loaded. When I was installing the OS if I installed the RAID drivers it would cause Server 2003 to hang at boot, so didn't install them. That was with the onboard RAID set to the default of Disabled in the BIOS. Maybe it would have worked OK if RAID was enabled.

RebateMonger, are the drives you are hotswapping connected to the SATA controller's internal or external connector?

 

[Old Hippie]

I was assuming SATA II drives and motherboard chipsets supported hot swapping.

The drives do. The chips must support true eSATA. Doesn't look like yours do.


Quote from Wikipedia;

eSATA is likely to be ignored by the enterprise and server market, which has already standardized on the separately-developed Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) interface, which has extra features for remote management, link redundancy, and link monitoring

 

[yuppiejr]

Are you running your on board SATA controller in AHCI mode? It is required for hot swap, along with other advanced SATA features, to work properly. All Intel southbridges since ICH7 should support this feature though it's generally best, at least in Windows XP, to use the "safely remove hardware" option to dismount the volume and spin down the drive before you just yank power/data by pulling the cartridge.

 

[owensdj]

yuppiejr, right now I have SATA AHCI set to the default of Disabled in the BIOS. The manual says this about it, "Select Enable to enable the function of Serial ATA Advanced Host Interface. (*Take
caution when using this function. This feature is for advanced programmers only." Should I try setting it to Enabled? Do I need to do anything in Server 2003 after I enable it? Thanks.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: owensdj
RebateMonger, are the drives you are hotswapping connected to the SATA controller's internal or external connector?

I use both, depending on the Server or PC. I normally use the PCI or PCI-E SATA controller cards from http://granitedigital.com, although most other Silicon-image-based controller cards seem to be fine, too. We've used these on a couple dozen Windows 2003 Servers for daily backups. Most are using Granite Digital's hot-swap trays mounted in the Server. A few are using SATA drives in external SATA housings. All are using standard SATA connectors, not eSATA connectors.

The only issue with the Silicon Image chipsets is that they don't offer a "Safely Remove" option. But we wouldn't use it anyway, since we can't have clients logging into their Server just to change out the backup drive. Our backups are typically using NTBackup with verification, so the original backup files are closed for write access when the verification process starts up. We just yank the connections. This is done on a daily basis at some sites, although most do it on a weekly basis.

 

[yuppiejr]

You need to enable AHCI for hot plug features to work properly with a SATA II drive. You will also need to install the appropriate RAID/AHCI controller drivers in Windows Server 2003 specific to your mainboard's chipset. (Intel Matrix RAID driver, Nvidia MediaShield drivers - part of the Nforce package)

 

[Ville]

Many controllers don't properly support hot-swap, especially with Windows Server 2003. I've been looking into this as I prefer to use a mobile HD tray (as opposed to tapes) for backup purposes. Previously I've used mobile rack in conjunction with SATA-to-USB2 bridge (read more here), but now at least Silicon Image -based controllers (such as those by Addonics) support hot-swap. Some Intel controllers do, too, as someone mentioned in this thread... but for single volumes you won't need RAID drivers; instead you can use a handy utility to dismount the drives before removing them. My current "best" solution for hard-drive backup is to use one of Addonics controllers (the inexpensive eSATA/SATA PCI controller works well) along with Mobile Rack II with multiple drive cartridges loaded with 750Gb or 1Tb drives.

For backup there are, of course, countless application options but I really like Super Flexible File Synchronizer to sync local server content (and sometimes content from mapped LAN drives) to the backup drive that is currently loaded in the bay (I run backups during the night, so it's safe to replace the drive cartridge during the day).

 

[corkyg]

Generally, internal SATA ports are seen by the OS as non-removable drives. In XP and Vista this is easily verified by right clicking on the drive in Device Mgr and selecting POLICIES. If the "Optimixe for Quick Removal" is grayed out - then that says the machine sees them as internal, non-hot swappable drives. If you can change it - do so. That turns off WRITE CACHING and makes them hot removable. I don't know where that is in Server 2003. But, it is there somewhere.

 

[Ville]

It's in My Computer > Manage > Computer Management / System Tools / Device Manager > Disk Drives > [highlight a drive, right click] Properties > Policies > Optimize for quick removal.

But the option may or may not be configurable, depending on the system configuration as outlined in this article.

 

[Old Hippie]

instead you can use a handy utility to dismount the drives before removing them.

Handy Dandy. :thumbsup: