Enable SATA Hot Swap

Hot Swap, or hot swapping, describes the process of connecting or removing an SATA drive from a running computer system. This hot swap technology has to be supported by the SATA controller and by the hardware driver in the operating system to work. The device specifications should state if the device is how swap capable. Another indicator is the safely remove hardware icon that should pop up automatically in the Windows system tray if the SATA drive is hot swap capable.

There are however cases where the controller supports hot swap but the driver has not implemented it. This is where the computer software Hot Swap comes into play. The portable software program will add the functionality to the operating system so that the SATA drives can be safely removed from the running computer system.

The software comes as a 32-bit and 64-bit edition. Both become available after unpacking the software on the local system. Executing either version will place a new icon in the Windows system tray that can be used to configure and work with the software.

A left-click on the icon will display options to remove selected devices safely from the computer. A right-click opens the configuration menu where the type of supported devices can be configured. By default only fixed disk drives are scanned and offered as an option which can be expanded to include CD and DVD drives, removable disk drives, safely removable devices and non hotswap devices.

The same menu contains options to scan for new hardware, to uninstall the program or to change the language from English to German or French.

Hot Swap is an excellent solution for users with external SATA devices who would like to use the hot swap option of their drives.

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Tags: hard-drives, hot swap, portable software, sata, sata devices, sata drives, sata hot swap, sata software, windows software
Categories: Windows, software

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3 Responses to “Enable SATA Hot Swap”

1. Anonymous says:

   April 5, 2009 at 6:29 pm

   Where’s the link?

   Reply
2. boris says:

   April 5, 2009 at 7:01 pm

   http://mysite.verizon.net/kaakoon/hotswap/index_enu.htm

   Reply

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1. {HACKS} Daily | How to Hot Swap SATA Hard Drives says:

   April 6, 2009 at 8:51 pm

   [...] When SiI3132 is used, drive will spin-down automatically on removal. [Via gHacks] [...]

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