How do I add SSD/HDD "hot swap" capability?

[uelazar]

Would to be able to "hot swap" HDD and SDD in my system but am unable to find meaningful info and guidance, not to mention a system component that delivers this feature.

 

[cdabc123]

you will need a pci or pcie raid card the supports hot swap and a minimum of 2 drives

 

[uelazar]

you will need a pci or pcie raid card the supports hot swap and a minimum of 2 drives

cdabc123,
Thanks. I don't understand why would I need a raid supporting card and 2 drives. Can you please elaborate some more or re-direct me to where I can find a tutorial perhaps?

 

[cdabc123]

for hot swap-ability you need 2 identical copy's of the same data so that when you remove one or replace one you lose no data. raid 1 will create a identical copy of the data on both cards. a raid card is necessary to setup the drives this way and you need 2 drives for raid 0

 

[uelazar]

for hot swap-ability you need 2 identical copy's of the same data so that when you remove one or replace one you lose no data. raid 1 will create a identical copy of the data on both cards. a raid card is necessary to setup the drives this way and you need 2 drives for raid 0

Understood.
I have used up all of my SATA connections on an existing X58 system. To backup my data periodically I am using an external HDD via USB - agonizingly slow. If I change the optical drive into a hot swap bay I can then swap out the optical drive and swap in the HDD to backup my data.
Makes sense? I assume I won't need the raid setup, or do I?

Forgot to mention ... I do have an eSata connection, though never used it. Can/should this the easier solution?

 

[tigerg]

for hot swap-ability you need 2 identical copy's of the same data so that when you remove one or replace one you lose no data. raid 1 will create a identical copy of the data on both cards. a raid card is necessary to setup the drives this way and you need 2 drives for raid 0

Why do you keep posting wrong info for people asking questions? This is just not true.

There are many enclosures which support hot swapping of individual drives. No RAID setup of any kind is needed. RAID cards can be expensive. A hot swap enclosure can be as cheap as US$20.

 

[jsmithepa]

Your problem sounds like readily solvable by using an external USB3 enclosure. It has a theoretical bandwidth of 5G, more than enough for any current HD and feels at home with SSD. If ur Mobo doesn't have USB3, can always add one with a daughter card, shouldn't be that expensive.

"Hot Swap" is typically used for RAID, maybe reason why it got confused. OP's problem is more of a EJECTABLE drive.

 

[sjwt]

If your BIOS is set to AHCI for access to the drives, and your MB's chipsets support it then under SATA they should be good for hot swapping, just make sure to disable write cache and or demount them..

For some reason even now a lot of people don't set AHCI and sit in IDE mode, i've been hot swapping running HDDs for many many years now without an issue.