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- Re: Workstation config that supports hotswap SATA

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02-05-2018 11:59 AM
Anyone know of the best workstation model that will support a hot swapable drive cage for SATA drives?
Working on building a forensic workstation, and one of our requirements is to have a 3.5" SATA hot swap configuration.
Thanks in advance!
02-05-2018 02:29 PM - edited 02-05-2018 02:32 PM
Our Z400 and Z600 workstations support hot swap of eSATA, and thus I'm assuming same would be the case on the other SATA ports.
Hot swap of the same eSATA drives does not work in our Z420/Z620 workstations.
02-05-2018 03:26 PM
i am not aware of any HP "workstation" that has this feature in a factory configuration unless it comes with a 3rd party SAS/SATA card as a HP option
most SAS/SATA pci-e cards support hotswap as a base feature
you can also run a software program called "HotSwap" that will allow you to manually trigger a hotswap on a selected drive
02-06-2018 01:46 PM - edited 02-06-2018 01:49 PM
I have an ICY DOCK 2.5"/3.5" internal drive in my HP Z620. As the name suggests, this drive can have both a 2.5" AND 3.5" SATA HDD's installed at the same time. It also has individual power and eject buttons for each drive. Each drive has its own SATA connection on the rear so you can access and/or copy between the drives. Just connect a pair of standard SATA leads to 2 of the free SATA ports on the motherboard. I use my dock for cloning drives, data recovery or removing viruses from other computers, (i.e. I remove the drive so I don't boot the OS from the drive you are trying to repair). Anyway, just wanted to share.
P.S. About £32 from Maplin but available from other sellers.
02-06-2018 03:56 PM
Hi,
Additionally to what Brian1965 has suggested you might also want to give the program HOTSWAP a try. I also have used the same ICY dock that Brian1965 has mentioned. I am now using a double 2.5" ICY dock front panel.
HP Envy 17", i7-8550u,16GB, 512GB NVMe, 4K screen, Windows 11 x64
Custom PC - Z690, i9-12900K, 32GB DDR5 5600, dual 512 GB NVMe, gen4 2 TB m.2 SSD, 4K screen, OC'd to 5 Ghz, NVIDIA 3080 10GB
08-24-2018 11:17 AM
Hello, I also have the same Icydoc and a HP Z620. I previously had been using another hot swap device but one of the data connectors broke during moving it from my previous z420. However I can't seem to get this Icydock to come up at all, not in This PC, not In Device manager Disk Drives, Windows Explorer, no where... I am beginning to thhink I have a dud Icy Dock. Any suggestions would be helpful before I attempt to contact Tech Support at IcyDock.
Rerards
08-24-2018 12:34 PM
Hi Skywalker3591,
Just to confirm a couple of points;
1. Are the green power LED's coming on, the ones besides the Icydock drive-eject buttons?
2. Have you checked your BIOS security settings? Are the ports on the motherboard enabled?
3. What ports are you connected to on the motherboard? I have my Icydock dual 2.5/3.5 drive connected the ports highlighted below;