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SATA drives in the cosmos . . . I don't use no stinking drive sleds . . .
SATA drives in the cosmos . . . I don't use no stinking drive sleds . . .
Let me tell you all a little story. One day a while back, (Once upon a time). I helped a friend setup a new motherboard. - It was actually a new case, power supply and motherboard. I was interested in seeing that the guy was using IDE racks and all of his hard drives were on sleds. I was aware of this type of hardware, but never thought it was for me, mainly because I thought one had to shutdown the computer to swap out a drive and since I was already doing that, and had setup my case and IDE cables to facilitate quick swapping, I saw no need for removable drive bays. But then he told me "Oh yeah, you can hot-swap too! You can just yank out a drive, and plug in a new one any time you want." Wow! Now that did interest me. I didn't know you could do that. I liked the idea, and so, on the next opportunity I picked up some drive racks and sleds. I installed them in my system. I ended up with less than satisfactory results. You see, the sleds I got would only support ATA-66, and my drives were ATA-133 (Extended LBA required) so the system didn't know how to get around the 137 GB limit for drive capacity, and when the system first started, Windows 2000 launched Check Disk which caused some files to disappear. As I researched the problem, I came to learn, amongst other things, that I was right in the first place; you can't hot-swap IDE peripherals. And so, as usual, my friend was talking from some cosmic la-la land. I soon put my collection of drive bays and sleds up for sale. Giving up on the notion of hot-swapping IDE, but the experience kindled a fire in me that just wouldn't go out, I knew that I wanted hot-swap capability, and was determined to get it. As an aside, I have since learned that you actually can hot-swap IDE drives with certain software support. Check out www.driveswap.com the makers of DriveSwap32 software. There is, supposedly, also a way to manipulate a DOS tool to dismount and mount drives, but I never followed up on that. Instead, since I was in the process of building up a new computer anyway and since SATA drives are hot-pluggable, I figured that that would be the best way to go. (My new computer would be an Athlon 32-bit CPU on a new Asus A7V600 motherboard running Windows XP Pro.) I bought Samsung 250MB SATA-II drives. I'm fond of Samsung drives, as I have never had a problem with one, and in looking at the machining on their cases, and the over all attention-to-detail I see, I think they are better constructed than other drives I have seen. Before Samsung, I was always a Seagate kind of guy. And don't get me wrong, I have never had a problem with a Seagate drives either, it's just that Samsung is a wee bit cheaper and as I said, the drives look excellent, so recently, that is what I have been using. As I built my new computer, I figured on putting my drives in "sleds" and mounting a couple of "Drive Bays". So I started researching the web again for more information. At first, I became confused by much of what I was reading. I think some of this confusion stemmed from the fact that many people are only familiar with Windows 98, or Windows 2000, and not Windows XP or XP Pro. It was difficult for me to keep the operating systems separated in my mind - or at least in the beginning I paid little attention to the flavor of Windows I was conversing about. I have since come to believe that Windows XP is the only truly hot-swap friendly OS. (But I must admit that this point is not totally clear to me. Will Windows 2000 support hot-swap SATA?) I have also discovered that SATA information is (surprisingly) not easy to come by - which is why I am posting this little write-up - to help some of you get started. What I wanted to do, was make sure that the removable drive bays I purchase are compatible with SATA-II drives - even though the controller on the new Asus motherboard is supposedly only a SATA-I controller, I planned on collecting a good many drive sleds, and I wanted to make sure that my investment would be useful in the future when SATA-II controllers become prevalent. - Incidentally, the 250MB Samsung SATA-II drives have jumper-pins used to switch the drive from SATA-II to SATA-I. At this time, I have those jumpers installed on all my drives. And so what more did I need to know before proceeding to purchase hardware? Well I wasn't sure. But I figured the best way to find out, would be to learn what others had already done. So, I searched the web, and made a few Usenet postings, and I sent off a bunch of emails to various SATA drive and controller companies (or at least the ones that advertise most prominently on the internet). I sent emails to SATA drive and hardware web-based sellers explaining what I was trying to do, and asked if there hardware would do the trick. Oh man! It's unbelievable what a mixed bag of results I got! Mostly people telling me I can't do it. Or that I would need special software or that I would be better off using USB - all manner of worthless information. And it seemed that most people were just blowing hot air. It made it difficult to tell if someone actually knew what they were talking about, or if they were speaking from some, uh - how should I say (?) . . . from some *cosmic* point of view. It's also extremely surprising to find just how few people actually want to run hot-swap SATA drives. To me, drive exchanging, especially hot-swapping, is the most useful way to deal with data overflow and backups. I have always thought that anyone that does not backup to hard disk just doesn't understand the economy and convenience of it. It's really the only way to go. Anyway, back to my story . . . .. . . I finally found one person (on Usenet) that was talking from experience. And was told that all I had to do was use SATA-II drives and put them in SATA-II sleds and use Windows XP, and it would all just work! I was told that no additional software was needed, and that no messages would be emitted by the operating system. Just do it and it will work! - You can imagine that, in light of all the "cosmic" information I had been receiving, I was a little bit skeptical about it, so I batted a few messages back and forth, and soon came to the conclusion that this person what legitimate, and I believed everything I was told. I did however still have a few unanswered questions: Since they were experienced with SATA-II drives, if was not clear if the same results would hold for SATA-I drives. Also, it was not entirely clear how much support was required from the SATA controller. I did learn that in order to do hot-swapping, the controller must support it. And one is constantly advised to "check with your motherboard manufacturer". Even this I found hard to do. When I went to the Asus site, I downloaded the manual for the motherboard, but that manual does not specifically say if the SATA controller is hot-swappable or not. I looked around the site, and did not find the information I was looking for. I even signed up for the "Forum", and made a posting. - Man! What a cosmic play ground that is! If the universe is expanding, it seems that most of these "cosmic thinkers" are not expanding quite as rapidly. :-) Needless to say, I still had questions: What is the difference between a SATA-I and a SATA-II drive bay? Why should there be any difference at all? After all, if the SATA drive is by itself hot-swappable, what function (other than pure convenience) would a drive fixture serve? Why should a SATA-I drive bay not work with SATA-II? (If in fact it really doesn't.) I decided to bite the bullet, and try hot-swapping without the use of drive sleds! I walked up to my running XP Pro system, with a new SATA-II drive in hand. I removed the cables from a running hard drive (obviously not the System drive!) and move the cables over to the new drive while the system was still running. What do you think happened? (Make your best guess, then look down for the answer.) It worked! Just as I was told, the old drive simply disappeared on Windows File Explorer, and the new drive came online. No message, no fuss, no muss. It just worked! Of course I had to run a quick Format on the new drive before I could use it, but after that, I could just move the wires back and forth to any of my SATA drives and they would work! So apparently, (even though I never read it), the Asus A7V600 motherboard does have a SATA controller that does support hot-swapping - and note that it is not a SATA-II controller! (At least I don't think it is.) I have since read that a signal (in the SATA controller cable) is used for the "drive present" signal. This is no doubt instrumental in the hot-swap process. And the bottom line is . . . .. . . I have decided not to even bother getting removable drive sleds! I plan on leaving two SATA drives permanently mounted inside the computer case (filling up both onboard SATA ports), and then add an additional SATA-II controller (with external connector) to one of the PCI slots. I have also seen advertised on the web, SATA power panels - just a simple little plate that covers one of the PCI openings and has a connector on it used to send power out of the case to an external SATA drive. (The cables come with the plate.) That is what I now plan on doing. I will simply place my SATA drives on top of the computer case (one at a time) and plug in the two cables. I will copy my files, and then remove that temporary drive and put it back on the shelf. Very simple. Right? So you see? I don't need no stinking drive sleds! But I will say this: If a company came out with a drive fixture that would allow one to plug a SATA drive into the front panel of a computer and do so in a very simple manner, then I would consider getting that. I do not see the need for any real "sleds", instead, just a simple slot to plug the actual bare drive into. But if it is absolutely necessary to have, say, simple plastic strips attached to each side of a drive, then that would be okay too. - Especially if a large lot of these plastic strips came with the bay. Also, I see no reason to push the drive deeply into the computer. To me it would be okay if the drive hung out of the computer, by say, and inch or two. That way, one could easily get there fingers on the drive. Of course, the actual "protrusion depth" could easily be made *user adjustable*. But until I find some reasonable hardware, I will be satisfied with my "drive-on-top-of-the-computer" method. You see? I don't need no stinking drive sleds! end of story - Stan Shankman |
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