>>standard IDE contoller that is on my mobo. I really no nothing about it other than where the connections are. I guess if the definition of true hot-swapping is to be able to change non identical drives then I have not tried that and don't need that currently. I had been using a more simplistic definition..
Not hot swappable. Dangerous in any case, and impossible
unless the drives are absolutely identical. There are too
many layers, electrical, bios, and OS to name 3 off the top
of my head, which examine the drives at various times to
decide how to access them. That's physically, which doesn't
count the logical layers the OS may lay down by caching
directory structures and the like.
If you want to trash a drive, swap it without shutting down.
There ARE hot swappable systems, software and hardware,
meaning you can take out a drive and replace it while the
system is running. Even then, they are designed to allow
you to replace a defective drive for fault tolerance rather
than to allow you to swap in new data.
Now if you can DISMOUNT the drive via the OS, that's another
issue. Then all you have to worry about are the electrical
and bios layers cooperating <gg>. This is SOP in real OSs,
but in Windows a foreign concept. Under Windows, if you
don't KNOW it's hot swappable, because of 3rd party hardware/
software or both, don't. Worst that can happen is it works
once or twice and then you'll believe it always will.
If you want hot swappable, get a CD-RW or a Jaz. Now
THAT's hot swappable.
Spots |
