NextPVR Forums

Here's a very useful little util i found to use to make sata drives really hot-swappable.
It simply creates a 'safely remove hardware' icon for removable sata drives...
it helps in detection of hot inserted drives, and flushing data buffers and preparing for removal..
You use it just like the 'safely remove hardware' icon for usb drives..[it looks just like it]
All sata controllers are supposed to support hot-swap on all ports, as it's part of the sata-1 spec. and so far i haven't found any it wouldn't work on..

So now you can get an esata drive enclosure and pop that drive in there and enjoy removability without losing any speed.
Works with win7 down to win2k..
http://mt-naka.com/hotswap/index_enu.htm

This is a great program, I've been using it for years for various reasons. I have some servers in the field that backup to removable hard drives, and Windows only allows certain types of hard drives to be hot-swapped. I use it on my home & office PC's when I want to connect a customer hard drive for data recovery or virus/spyware removal, and then disconnect the drive without shutting down. Without this utility you can connect a SATA drive using device manager ("Scan for hardware changes"), but there's no way to safely remove it (you're supposed to be able to disable the drive then remove it, but I've never had that work).

HotSwap! has never failed me. The worst that's happened is that on rare occaision sometimes Windows just refuses to let go of a drive, in which case you can either pull it anyway and hope for the best, or reboot.

edit: by the way, so far I've found it works with every SATA controller I've tried, not just the ones on the list.

yep, Intel raid controllers can do it if you install the bloated raid software, same with nvidia chipsets...
but this is so much smaller and simpler and portable..and works in any mode, not just raid or ahci mode..

it should work with every sata drive/controller out there, cuz it's part of the original sata standard..