BlacX, eSATA, and Power Management

[TheMouse]

I am considering using a hard drive docked in a BlacX for more of a permanant basis. I'll need to swap hard drives on occasion, but will usually have one in there, always on, always accessible, 24/7. It will be connected via eSATA.

It's for a media server, so power management is important to me. Can the OS (Windows in this case) manage the hard drive though the dock? Can it effectively power down and up the hard drive as needed?

To break it down further, I am asking two questions:

1) Does windows see an eSATA hard drive just like it was a regular internal SATA drive and manage as such?

2) Does the BlacX dock allow the OS to manage the hard drive via eSATA or does it take control of power management?

Thanks!

 

[RebateMonger]

1) Does windows see an eSATA hard drive just like it was a regular internal SATA drive and manage as such?

How Windows treats it can vary by what disk controller is hooked to the disk. Generally speaking, Windows will treat it as a "normal" disk. It'll show up in Disk Management along with other SATA disks. You can boot to it and do about everything else I can think of. If the controller tells Windows it's a removeable disk (some do, some don't), Windows probably won't let you make it a dynamic disk.

I recently had an eSATA disk I was using for cloning of my server's boot disk. Not thinking, I inserted the clone of my system disk into the eSATA dock and booted the server. It booted to the "clone" disk (which was apparently earlier in the boot order) and proceeded to rewrite my boot loader on the "real" system disk so that the "real" disk was now unbootable. So, yeah, Windows thinks it's a regular disk.

 

[TheMouse]

Thanks RebateMonger. This looks promising from the Windows side of things. I'll have to keep note of the havok a bootable drive connected via eSATA can cause and will have to pay attention to boot order.

I'm hoping someone who uses the Thermaltake Blacx eSATA dock can chime in on their specific experience. I should also add that the eSATA port on the desktop is connected directly to an internal SATA port. It is not built-in on the motberboard, if that matters.

 

[Old Hippie]

Not thinking, I inserted the clone of my system disk into the eSATA dock and booted the server. It booted to the "clone" disk (which was apparently earlier in the boot order) and proceeded to rewrite my boot loader on the "real" system disk so that the "real" disk was now unbootable.

I was kinda hoping I wasn't the only one that did that.

PSSS....AND it took me awhile to figure out what was going on.

 

[RebateMonger]

Well, my eSATA docking station IS a Thermaltake. But I have no ideal whether the disk in the dock is being put to sleep or not. The OS is Server 2008 and offhand I doubt it puts any of its disks to sleep by default.

 

[zerogear]

I have a BlackX - connected to my Wii, it does put the drive to sleep after a certain amount of time, but it is not managed by OS.

 

[skid00skid00]

I ran mine with esata for awhile, as a backup drive. It was listed in disk management as a different type of drive, unlike the internal sata hdds, but I don't remember what, exactly.

It still worked just like any connected hd.

My esata stopped working, now I run it thru usb...

 

[corkyg]

My Vantec eSATA dock has its own power. I don't turn it "On" until the system is booted and Windows loaded. Never a problem.

 

[capeconsultant]

I do the same with my Vantec. Works great.

 

[TheMouse]

Thanks guys. Not exactly what I was looking for. I might just opt for scrapping the dock and using an internal drive.