I've been monkeying with a new HDD and the idea of achieving the best combo of speed and removeability (or at least on-the-fly power-off-ability) on the cheap; ergo no exotic FW800 or even eSATA 300 add-in controllers.
I found that USB2 sucks once accustomed to normal ATA performance. I expected my old timey ICH5 not to hot swap, per se, but wondered if a SATA drive could be powered off without crashing Windows. Well, the answer is no... unless the drive is first disabled and then the answer is a resounding yes. 🙂
So, I thought I would share how to manage it easily.
Fetch DevCon (command line Device Manager). Note the HDD's Device Instance ID (most easily from DM properties). Only enough to uniquely distinguish it from other devices is necessary so that
IDE\DiskSAMSUNG_SP2504C_________________________VT100-41\[long alpha-numeric string]
may be truncated with wildcards. As a matter o' fact I'm not sure how to include the complete string so if you have more than one HDD with the same name then you're on your own! Anyway, use Notepad to create two CMD files with which to peform the disable and enable.
Example file name:
DiskSAMSUNG_SP2504C disable.cmd
Example contents:
devcon disable *DiskSAMSUNG_SP2504C*
Run each command and verify they disable/enable the HDD in DM (should also see disappear and reappear in Explorer upon refresh). Then optionally create shortcuts, edit their properties to run minimized and even change the icons. Put 'em on your Desktop, Quick Launch, Toolbar or wherever.
I use PowerDesk so I put 'em on the Launchbar, like so (where are more suitable icons found other than shell32.dll?).
Now, for powering-off: that would conventionally be handled by an external enclosure or simply disconnecting the plug. I wouldn't be keen on doing so at the drive itself as they just weren't designed to withstand repeated use. So, it could be done with a "disposable" extension cable or a spliced switch. Another option, especially for external use, is a switched AC adapter. They are commonly included with USB to IDE/SATA adapters (sometimes with a "Molex" 4-pin to SATA power adapter).
I hope someone else finds this useful 😉
I found that USB2 sucks once accustomed to normal ATA performance. I expected my old timey ICH5 not to hot swap, per se, but wondered if a SATA drive could be powered off without crashing Windows. Well, the answer is no... unless the drive is first disabled and then the answer is a resounding yes. 🙂
So, I thought I would share how to manage it easily.
Fetch DevCon (command line Device Manager). Note the HDD's Device Instance ID (most easily from DM properties). Only enough to uniquely distinguish it from other devices is necessary so that
IDE\DiskSAMSUNG_SP2504C_________________________VT100-41\[long alpha-numeric string]
may be truncated with wildcards. As a matter o' fact I'm not sure how to include the complete string so if you have more than one HDD with the same name then you're on your own! Anyway, use Notepad to create two CMD files with which to peform the disable and enable.
Example file name:
DiskSAMSUNG_SP2504C disable.cmd
Example contents:
devcon disable *DiskSAMSUNG_SP2504C*
Run each command and verify they disable/enable the HDD in DM (should also see disappear and reappear in Explorer upon refresh). Then optionally create shortcuts, edit their properties to run minimized and even change the icons. Put 'em on your Desktop, Quick Launch, Toolbar or wherever.
I use PowerDesk so I put 'em on the Launchbar, like so (where are more suitable icons found other than shell32.dll?).
Now, for powering-off: that would conventionally be handled by an external enclosure or simply disconnecting the plug. I wouldn't be keen on doing so at the drive itself as they just weren't designed to withstand repeated use. So, it could be done with a "disposable" extension cable or a spliced switch. Another option, especially for external use, is a switched AC adapter. They are commonly included with USB to IDE/SATA adapters (sometimes with a "Molex" 4-pin to SATA power adapter).
I hope someone else finds this useful 😉
