Overclock.net banner
Cancel
Create thread New Forums

Pulling out a hard drive while the computer is on

Jump to Latest
1 - 11 of 11 Posts
I

Intel Smile

· Registered
Joined
·
31 Posts
Discussion starter · #1 ·
If the drive is not in use (additional drive with nothing on it) and it's pulled out of the computer while it's on, will this do any harm?

(I have a lot of game bots running so I don't want to disturb them)
 
#6 ·
i fried a harddrive doing that, freakin shame it had al my music on it
Image
dont try it
 
Save
Reply Quote Rep+ Rep+
#7 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by dracotonisamond View Post
modern SATA drives are built with hot swapping in mind. they have their ground fingers further out to contact first. but you must have it configured correctly for hot swapping or you could loose all your data.

i'd say put the bots to bed for a bit.
Most newer drives. Some HDD manufacturers are ****wads and think its cool to have 2 identical drives with different firmware and then charge $150 extra for the one with enterprise firmware.

Just don't do it unless u have hotswappable backplanes and ACHI (or whatever its called) support.
 
#8 ·
yep you need:
1. AHCI Support with Hotswap support (not all chips support hot swap)
2. The Guts to lose your data because you didn't want to shut down the machine for a few minutes.
 
#9 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by TheDreadedGMan View Post
yep you need:
1. AHCI Support with Hotswap support (not all chips support hot swap)
2. The Guts to lose your data because you didn't want to shut down the machine for a few minutes.
Modern SATA drives are not just built for PCs, they are also used in nearline bulk data and SME file/print server setups. Many a time it's simply not practical to switch off a server just to pull one hard disk. Hence the Norco 4020.

As long as AHCI is configured and the drive controller (and backplane if you're using one) is compliant with it, hot swap is fine.

Obviously there are precautions to take: simply make sure the drive is not active if it is a single; make double sure it and its mate are not active if it is in a RAID 1 set.
 
Save
Reply Quote Rep+ Rep+
#10 ·
Most SATA drives, especially consumer grade drives, are not equipped electrically for hotswap though - check the connector on a SAS drive and you can usually see the extra resistors around the power and signal connectors that allow them to be hot-swapped. SATA drives should (usually) only be hotswapped in suitable bays that contain the current limiting resistors and stepped power pins as well as stepped power/ground pins.

This is nothing to do with firmware on the drive.
 
Save
Reply Quote Rep+ Rep+
1 - 11 of 11 Posts
About this Discussion
10 Replies
11 Participants
Last post:
overclockingXTC
Overclock.net
posts
28M
members
562K
Since
2004
The premier forum for overclocking experts and enthusiasts. Discuss hardware optimization, custom builds, benchmarking, cooling solutions, and pushing the boundaries of computing performance. From beginner guides to extreme overclocking, join our technical community to master system tuning.
Full Forum Listing
Explore Our Forums
Intel CPUs Hardware News NVIDIA PC Gaming Water Cooling