WD Raptor install

[Islelight]

I just had a WD Raptor 74Gig installed on my computer and theres an Icon on the bottom for safely remove hardware. The computer seems to think of it as an external device. What do I do about this because Im sure this is not normal. THANKS!

 

[mattjw916]

maybe you have the super-secret-hot-swap-raptor-prototype...

just don't click on the icon and set it to "always hide" on the taskbar config if you dont want to see it...

 

[stryder2720]

I get the same thing but just do what matt said and you will be ok.

 

[lithium726]

um... all SATA devices are hot-swappable guys... thats what the new power connection allows...

 

[Islelight]

THANKS for the info!

 

[mattjw916]

sorry... i just had visions of people yanking out non-fault-tolerant sata raid drives and then posting threads requesting data recovery of their pr0n storage...

 

[ashmedai]

You can hot plug the things using classic molex too, it's usually just a pin-adapter. Those new power adapters are alot nicer to use than molex though.

 

[lithium726]

You can hot plug the things using classic molex too, it's usually just a pin-adapter. Those new power adapters are alot nicer to use than molex though.

last time i checked, plugging in a HDD to an active molex = unexpected load on teh supply = crash and possibly damage to the HDD. not only that, but you cant hot swap with EIDE, you can with SATA.

sure you can hotplug fans, but i would not risk one of my drives liek that.

 

[Sib]

Hot swapping is nothing new. You could hot swap SCSI for a long time if you had an SCA drive and the back plane for it. They just decided to carry over that feature to SATA.

 

[Vertigo Acid]

last time i checked, plugging in a HDD to an active molex = unexpected load on teh supply = crash and possibly damage to the HDD.

Hmm... i'm not sure that's the case; The current variation between idle and load on a CPU and/or GPU will be easily more than the load generated at startup to overcome inertia and spin the drive motor. If your power supply can't handle that, you have serious problems

 

[lithium726]

Hmm... i'm not sure that's the case; The current variation between idle and load on a CPU and/or GPU will be easily more than the load generated at startup to overcome inertia and spin the drive motor. If your power supply can't handle that, you have serious problems

well ive never tried it as i didnt wanna fry any of my drives

in any case, why would it matter? you cant hot swap EIDE

 

[ashmedai]

I don't think it matters electrically what kind of plug the wires have on the end, but this is just my imagining and not something I can document either way.

The hot-swappableness of SATA is of course not related to the electrical supply at all, but to the electronics on the drive/controller.

Of course it never hurts to be a little paranoid, less likely to let the smoke out that way.

 

[Vertigo Acid]

I don't think it matters electrically what kind of plug the wires have on the end, but this is just my imagining and not something I can document either way.

The hot-swappableness of SATA is of course not related to the electrical supply at all, but to the electronics on the drive/controller.

Again, no. Look closely at the connector, and you will notice that a few "fingers" stick out farther than the rest. Those are ground wires, and therefore connect first when you plug it in. That's a pretty standard hotswap setup, whereas a normal molex will connect all 4 pins at the same time, creating potential for a short.

 

[ashmedai]

Ah, now it makes sense.

All my drives are SATA anyway, and the only one that can take molex AND the SATA power is my Raptor, and since the computer's probably not going to be on without that connected...*shrug*