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Hot-Swapping IDE Drives?

Posted by Cliff on from the swapping-like-floppies dept.

Patman asks: "I've recently taken a new job where I'll need to be making drive images and such for quite a few IDE drives - say a few a day. I need the ability to 'hot-swap' IDE drives into a running Linux or Windows system. The systems that I'm using are fairly standard IBM desktop PCs, I've found references on Google to IDE->USB converter cables and IDE->USB converter boxes. Does anyone have experience with those? Some come with drivers for Windows - has anyone used them under Linux? Does the mass storage USB code deal with them accurately? Barring that, does anyone have any other ideas? External hot-swapping would be ideal, although an internal solution would be doable, too."

4 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. Delayed write bug in Win2k by ka9dgx · · Score: 4, Informative
    There seems to be a deep seated bug in Windows 2000 server when it comes to delayed writes and USB. The USB spec calls for a maximum transfer of 128k, but Win2k attempts a 512k trasfer after it's cached up a few writes, which results in "Delayed Write Failure", and lost files.

    I can't seem to find any fix, the driver software doesn't permit caching to be disabled in the advanced properties box, so it's rendered an otherwise fine 120 GB Western Digital drive as an expensive paper weight, at least as far as Windows is concerned.

    From what I've been able to read, it appears that Linux knows better, and respects the 128k per packet limit, and doesn't have this issue, but I've not confirmed that yet.

    It's a bitch to be doing a backup (using copy) of 45 Gb of photos, and lose a few along the way.

    --Mike--

  2. Buffering Bug in Linux by Crutcher · · Score: 4, Informative

    Okay, I use a USB drive enclosure on Linux to do my backups, and it works pretty well.

    However, it took me a very long time to learn to set the 'sync' option in the mount options. USB writes much more slowly than a normal harddrive, and if sync isn't set, it is possible for the system to buffer all writes to the drive up to the point where it consumes most system memory, and the machine becomes unresponsive.

    Perhaps this is fixed in 2.6; but it doesn't really matter. You are doing backups, the backup isn't done until it's all on the disk, so setting the sync option just means that your writes "seem" to take longer, and your unmount at the end seems faster. Without sync, you pay for the buffering in the unmount, which will hang while it finishes syncing the disk.

    --

    -- Crutcher --
    #include <disclaimer.h>
  3. Windows XP has an option for Firewire. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 5, Informative

    Windows XP has an option for not caching Firewire writes. You can then just remove and reconnect the drive without any other adjustment and without data loss. If you have audio on, there is a tone when the drive is connected or disconnected.

  4. Re:I tried that once.... by schapman · · Score: 5, Informative

    theres a reason not to do this... If you look at SATA, one of the reasons its safe to hot-swap is that on the power connector, the pins are different lengths. This way, when u connect/disconnect, you wont have shorts happening. I think its the ground connector on the power cable that connects first, disconnects last... Old school PATA devices dont have this, so every time you connect/disconnect while running... you have the risk of shorting and blowing your drive/MB

    --
    Wouldnt you like to be a pepper too?