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Hot-Swapping IDE Drives?
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."
Grab a IEEE1394 IDE bridge, preferably bus powered. Linux should support these devices and they are easily, externally hot-swappable. I've had success with the SuperDriveDock from Wiebetech, although there are certainly cheaper models out there.
Professional and Server are slightly different. While yes, there's just a bunch of tweaking parameters in the registry, and some other parameters which control special licensing, at the simplest level there are packages which simply do not exist in Professional which exist in Server e.g. Active Directory, IIS, Message Queueing, stuff like that.
For the purpose of drivers and hardware support, yeah, they're identical.
BTW, some packages artificially impose licensing restrictions depending on whether you're running Server or Professional, e.g. Partition Magic. It won't touch a Win2k server partition unless you pay for their special Win2k server product... even though the filesystems are identical :-(
I have trouble believing the CDs are identical except for some product ID code. It would be a pain in the butt for Microsoft to code in all those stupid "if Server... " statements. They're running different packaging and printing different holograms on the CDs, they may as well put different data on them and not bother with all the development costs of a split install path.
Vipower makes a ton of products that look like they might suit your needs. Keeping the drives in the little "mobile rack" caddies is probably a good idea, since exposed circuit boards left laying around the office are just asking for Ms. Mohair Sweater to come touch them.
As has been pointed out, it's possible to stop IDE devices and disconnect them with the machine on, but this is like playing Russian Roulette. In a spec designed for hot swap, the ground and power connections mate first and disconnect last, to keep the signal connections from carrying any initial current surges. IDE/ATA has no such provision, and hot matings/removals might damage your drive and/or controller. (The same goes for PS/2 keyboards and mice! Just because it works the first 100 times doesn't mean you won't fry your motherboard the 101st time, when the connector goes in a bit sideways.)
Serial ATA on the other hand, does allow for hot swapping, and USB is obviously designed for it. If you can get away with using exclusively SATA drives, check out some of the Supermicro drive racks. If you're building your own RAID system, these things are the way to go. I got a Supermicro server case second-hand and have been extremely impressed with the thoughtfulness of the design. Well-engineered products are rare and special, especially in this cheaper-sooner-cheaper industry.