Are Vantec EZ-Swap racks hot swapable?

[stewie]

Just wondering if the vantec ez swap 5 1/4" bays that are the 3 1 /2" hdd enclosures are hot swapable? I check on thier site, but thier site didn't really say anything about it. This is for IDE btw..
Thanks
-Stewie

 

[stevewm]

Nope.

IDE is not hot swappable. To get this ability requires a special (and expensive) controller card and matching removable tray. 3ware is one such company that makes these.


DO NOT trust any removable rack advertised as hot swappable. You run the risk of ruining your drive and/or your IDE controller by hot swapping.

 

[liquidtrance123]

far as i know i believe only SATA and SCSI are hot swappable, but only certain versions of SCSI are. And in order for SATA to be hot swappable you must be using the SATA data AND power cables.

 

[stevewm]

Originally posted by liquidtrance123
far as i know i believe only SATA and SCSI are hot swappable, but only certain versions of SCSI are. And in order for SATA to be hot swappable you must be using the SATA data AND power cables.

While IDE does not have native hot swap abilities, products from 3ware and similar companies do allow IDE hotswap. But such equipment is not cheap. But again, IDE was not really designed with this in mind.

SATA and SCSI both have native hotswap support. Its best (and required in some cases) to use a backplane/moble rack when using ethier interface's hotswap abilities.

If you plan to hotswap with SATA drives you MUST use a NATIVE SATA drive and NATIVE SATA controller. Don't hotswap with IDE-SATA adapters. You must also use the SATA style power connector. Do not attempt to hotswap using the standard molex driver power connector, it was not designed for it.

 

[stewie]

Thanks alot guys.. this info helped alot..