Using a SATA hdd as a removable hdd

[Zucarita9000]

I have an HP ProLiant ML110 G5 server that I'm using as a NAS device. The onboard SATA RAID controller has two 1TB drives in RAID1 for storage, and I'd like to add a third, removable 1TB hdd to use for off-site storage.

I'm planning on using this drive bay, which sits on a 5.25" bay and supports hot-swap. The nice thing about this bay is that it doesn't use a drive cage, you simply slide the bare hdd in.

However, the onboard SATA controller on the ML110 doesn't support hot-swap, but I remember that in the Win98 and 2000 days you could configure an IDE drive as removable, so one was able to remove the drive with the computer still on. Is this still possible? Or will I have to use a separate SATA controller with hot swap support?

 

[Nothinman]

Even if Windows98/2K let you set a non-removable drive as removable it wouldn't be a smart thing to do. If the port doesn't support hot-swap then you risk frying something every time you do that.

 

[craftech]

Originally posted by: Zucarita9000
I have an HP ProLiant ML110 G5 server that I'm using as a NAS device. The onboard SATA RAID controller has two 1TB drives in RAID1 for storage, and I'd like to add a third, removable 1TB hdd to use for off-site storage.

I'm planning on using this drive bay, which sits on a 5.25" bay and supports hot-swap. The nice thing about this bay is that it doesn't use a drive cage, you simply slide the bare hdd in.

However, the onboard SATA controller on the ML110 doesn't support hot-swap, but I remember that in the Win98 and 2000 days you could configure an IDE drive as removable, so one was able to remove the drive with the computer still on. Is this still possible? Or will I have to use a separate SATA controller with hot swap support?

I use that rack all the time. Bought it cheap from Monoprice. It works perfectly, but I don't hot swap. Not a good idea as mentioned. And I don't even feel I need to anyway. It's quick enough to power down and change drives then reboot. Very quick in fact.

John

 

[Zucarita9000]

Thanks. I think I'll just add a second SATA controller with hot swap support. It's not that expensive anyway.

 

[Zucarita9000]

So, just to be sure I purchased a small 1x PCI Express SATA card. It uses the Silicon Image Sil3132 controller, which according to their website, support hot swapping:

including 3.0 Gbps SATA II transfer speeds, Native Command Queuing, port multipliers with FIS-based switching, programmable output signal swing strengths for longer external cables or extended backplanes, hot plugging, enclosure management and ATAPI device support.

So now I have a hot plug capable card and drive bay. My question is, how do I configure the hot plug support? Will Windows allow me to set the drive as removable (show the eject option in the task bar)? Would fsutil volume dismount X: do the trick?