[nzlug] Hotswapping and sata drives...

[Daniel Lawson]

> I found this information on the card I've got:
> http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html#sil
>
> which says that the driver is production quality but I'm wondering if
> this concludes that it can be hotswapped. Once I've figured out if it
> is capable, I also need to find out if there are any special commands
> for it. I.e. is unmounting or ejecting it enough or are there commands
> specifically for preparing a drive to be taken out?
>   

SATA is always electrically safe to hotswap.

http://linux-ata.org/driver-status.html has a better breakdown of what
each chipsets supports.

Regarding the process of actually swapping a drive out, the command
sequence should be the same as with SCSI systems:

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/archived/SCSI-Programming-HOWTO/SCSI-Programming-HOWTO-4.html
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/SCSI-2.4-HOWTO/mlproc.html

I don't believe the interface has changed.