I've tested it and it works fine. But I don't use the
feature regularly, due to the rats nest of wiring
inside my computer.
For the OS to recognize the drive, you'd want the
equivalent
of the Intel AHCI driver. I tested using a VIA chipset,
and
whatever driver VIA offered, seemed to support "hot plug".
Bottom line, there is at least one kind of driver in use
for SATA, where hot plug is not recognized, and the drive
in that case, would only be seen if it was present at
power
up. If the wrong driver is present, the drive will not be
seen after hot plugging it.
The main issue with hot plug, is shock and vibration. You
don't want to shake the drive while fiddling with cables.
The SATA connector on the back of the drive, is actually
designed for SATA backplanes. In other words, the intent
was
for a drive to slide on rails, and seat against a mating
connector
on a backplane. The SATA connector was designed for server
configurations and hot plug - usage as a consumer drive
in desktops is an afterthought.
(A SATA backplane, where drives would slide in on some
kind of carrier.)
http://images.dr3vil.com/uploads/hotswapbays.jpg
But you can still use cabling and do the same thing as
a server backplane would be doing.
This is the order I'd suggest, for manual hot-plug
connection.
1) Connect data cable to the hard drive. This is to
avoid shaking the drive end.
2) Connect power cable to the hard drive. You should
be able to do this step as you wish. If you're using
an extension power cable, you can connect the far end
to the power supply, as step (2b). Or, if the power
cable
comes straight from the power supply, you can just
connect it
to the drive. (See also, Step 10 below.)
3) The drive starts to spin, once the power connector is
in place.
You don't want to shake it, after this point in time.
4) Connect the far end of the data cable, to the
motherboard
connector. Look at the connectors on each end, for the
characteristic
"L" shape, to make mating easier. There will be a
"dimple" or
retention feature on the SATA data cable, to make it
fit snugly,
so it won't fall off. You have to be able to tell the
difference
between the resistance the dimple will offer, versus
getting
the stupid "L" upside-down. Don't try to force it on
the wrong way.
5) If the AHCI driver is running, or a chipset driver
known to support
hot plug is in place, the drive will now be detected.
If there is a
valid partition on it, you'll see that partition added
to the contents
of the "My Computer" window. If the drive hasn't been
partitioned
yet, you should see a new drive in Disk Management, and
you can
partition it there.
6) You'll notice a "Safely Remove" icon in the tray. There
is a list
of removable devices in there, and your new,
hot-plugged hard drive
will be one of the items. If you happen to see the C:
drive in the
list, don't panic - you can't remove it, even if you
try.
Now, to remove the hot-plug drive later, you can either do
a regular
shutdown from the Start menu, or you can "hot-unplug".
7) Make sure no programs have open files on the hard drive
in question.
Use the Safely Remove icon, to select the drive from a
list of
removable drives.
8) Safely Remove will either tell you the drive is now
safe to remove,
or that it could not remove the drive. You'll be able
to remove the
drive, once all opened files have been closed. If you
were using
Notepad to read a text file on the drive, quitting
Notepad should
close the connection to that file. Some programs can be
very sneaky,
so this step can be hard to do.
9) If "Safely Remove" reports the drive was removed, you
can
unplug the data cable from the motherboard end. That is
to avoid
shaking the drive. If you were to unplug it from the
hard drive end,
there would be some shock applied to the drive
mechanism. In
step 9, the spindle is still spinning. In theory, you
should be
able to tell a drive to spin down, but I don't know of
a way to do
that.
10) What happens to drive power now, is a tricky bit. If
you were using
a power extension cable for the SATA power, then you'd
disconnect
the far end of that. That is to avoid shaking the
drive. If the
power connector is coming straight from the power
supply, I'd
personally, wait until the next shutdown, to retrieve
the drive
and remove the power cable. So using an extension
cable for the
power, is the most flexible option.
As far as I know, you can do anything you want. But if you
want a
long life for the hard drive, I recommend doing things in
such a
way, that the drive is not shaken while the spindle is in
motion.
With the appropriate extension cabling, that isn't too
hard to
arrange. I expect on servers, they just rip the drive out
with the
spindle still in motion. There is no way to know, whether
the
heads were parked by "Safely Remove" or not, or whether
they're
retracted by the loss of power being detected. On my
drive,
it was still spinning after "Safely Remove". And I can't
tell
if the heads were parked at that point or not.
I used one of these extension cables for power, so I could
remove
the far end of the power connection at the end of a
"session" with
a drive. The drive sat on a platform, next to the open PC.
I would
unplug the Molex 1x4 end, to remove power, leaving the 15
pin end
seated on the drive. I have enough slack in my power
supply
cabling, that pulling the Molex apart doesn't strain the
power
cable.
(1x4 Molex to 1x15 SATA power extension cable)
http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/12-887-006-S02?$S640W$
*******
If you use an external "ESATA" enclosure, those have their
own
power supply. That gives slightly more freedom regarding
shaking things. ESATA connectors have a better design,
which
raises the number of insertions before connector wearout
to about 5000 cycles. But your computer needs an ESATA
plate
on the back with a connector, or the addition of an ESATA
card
if that is missing, if you want to use ESATA. The ESATA
electrical
spec is almost the same as regular SATA, except the
electrical levels
are shifted a bit, to make it possible to use a longer
cable (allows
more loss budget). If you're using an ordinary SATA
motherboard
connector, and some kind of passive cable and adapter
plate, simply
reduce the length of the external cabling for best
results. You can
buy ESATA cables in various lengths.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esata#eSATA
This is an example of a short ESATA cable, at only 0.5
meters (1.64 feet).
If your computer has "real" ESATA electrical levels, the
cable can be
2.0 meters long. If in doubt, keep it short.
http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/12-816-035-S02?$S640W$
One of the benefits of using an ESATA enclosure, is you
can keep
the side of your PC closed (at least, as long as you have
an
ESATA connector on the back of the computer to use for the
data connection).
If you suspect the data cabling you bought is crappy, you
have the option of fitting the "Force150" jumper on the
back
of the Seagate drive, to drop the cable rate to
1.5Gbit/sec versus
the 3.0Gbit/sec it is capable of running. If you were
seeing problems
with data errors, that is something you can try. That will
make
next to no difference to transfer performance, so isn't a
big deal.
I've tested a couple Seagate drives here, with that jumper
in or
out, and can't really tell the difference.
Paul
