Hotplugging and unplugging hard drives?

miniyazz

miniyazz

miniyazz

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Joined
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Having just recently got sufficient storage space to have a complete backup of all my hard drives, I'm thinking of also isolating them from the PSU in case of a power surge (despite my UPS!) when I'm not using them. Trouble is, they're all internal, and I turn off my computer for no man! lol. Certainly not every night following a backup.

So my question is: which cables do I need to unplug to ensure safety from a surge? The power cable, of course, but what about the SATA? Also, would linking up the Earth wire of the HDD cables, and putting in a switch suffice? Because I could then put the switch outside the case so wouldn't need to have the side off all the time.

Or, would it be better to have a switch for each of the 12V, 5V, and 3V wires, and then disconnect/reconnect in sequence? Just wondering about spinning down and whether the HDD can park the read/write head after being unplugged, or whether normally the PSU will deal with that by leaving the 3V power active longer than the other two.

Ideas/suggestions welcome!
 
I'd be tempted to look at an external caddy or NAS enclosure for this as it would make isolating them far easier and safer too. Or if you have a spare PC why not turn that into a NAS box as many others here have done?
 
I haven't got a spare PC recent enough to have either PCI-e or SATA ports, unfortunately, so either option wouldn't be cheap. Plus then I have the hassle of finding somewhere for another case to go. It's a possibility I suppose, but I'd far rather wire in a few switches for a couple of quid if it can be done!
 
Is it really a good idea to be unplugging internal drives while the power is still on your pc? I wouldn't feel safe doing this.
As FaceplantSi said I would be looking at an external caddy for them.
 
CaseyChaos said:
Is it really a good idea to be unplugging internal drives while the power is still on your pc? I wouldn't feel safe doing this.
As FaceplantSi said I would be looking at an external caddy for them.
Click to expand...

There must be a process the PSU goes through to turn off the hard drives safely. Anyway, the SATA specification includes hotswapping drives (I had to enable AHCI in BIOS for this to work) so it can definitely be done. The main risk with doing things inside the case while the computer's on is of shorting the components by touching something accidentally. If I could rig up a switch system, I could do it without going inside the case, so that wouldn't be a problem. I agree that using a caddy would probably be the easiest way, but like I said I'm hoping for a cheap way of doing this and buying three/four caddies would set me back over £70!

lopkinfop said:
SATA HDDs can be safley removed.

you could get something like this

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-006-BT&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=72

you just turn a key and the HDDs are disconnected, or if you really want to seperate it you can pull the internal section (and HDD) out and store it somewhere
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion, this looks like a pretty good idea, I imagine they fit into 5.25" bays? The problem again is it works out pretty expensive once several drives are put in the picture and I'm having to cut back, which includes trying not to spend money on anything I can do a DIY job on!
 
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