Can you Insert Drive While Running Mac Pro ??

[eyecool]

Man, I've been running my MP with the panel open, plugging and pulling my wife's fried iMac drive in to hard drive bays 3 and 4.

I've also got a USB connector for hard drives plugged in. Turning it off and on and off and on trying to figure out how sizzled this iMac drive is. It was BURNING hot when I pulled it out. Second time this has happened. First time it was just out of warranty, so I had no fear of taking it apart.

Since I've been searching for help with this drive, I was already logged in to the forums. One suggestion was putting the drive in the freezer, then connecting it. The longer it takes the drive to heat up, the more data u can pull off. It's the only thing I've found (so far) that works.

So here I was, about to plug a freezing cold, seagate 500 gb, 7200.10 in to bay 3 of my dear ol' eight core big mac when I figured I'd search to make sure drives were hot swapable.

THANK GOD I READ THIS THREAD! MY MAC IS NOT DEAD YET! Although I did have to reboot 6 times today, and boy, do I hate rebooting. This beast is always on.

Time to put the cover back on, get it off the CARPET and call it a night. Mac Pro hard drive are definitely not plug n play "hot swapable".

 

[lixuelai]

Lol you cannot fry it. SATA is hot swappable. However the software has to support it. Only bad thing would be if you pull a running drive and then it is your data not the hardware getting hosed.

 

[Tesselator]

Yeah, I think nothing would be damaged either but why chance it when there is no purpose. Nothing is gained by plugging one in while the system is running - you still need to restart. Eject works fine instead of unplugging so... nothing gained - no reason to try it.

 

[nanofrog]

Lol you cannot fry it. SATA is hot swappable. However the software has to support it. Only bad thing would be if you pull a running drive and then it is your data not the hardware getting hosed.

Hot Swappable and Hot Pluggable aren't the same though. In the case of USB for example, it is. But not with SATA.

If the power portion is capable, the connector is a little different. Pins 4 and 12 are longer (grounds), and there's a circuit installed to limit the inrush current. Usually on the board, as most PSU's don't support it by themselves. That's not the case for the '06 - '08 models, and appartently, the '09's either. The XServe is the exception from Apple I'm aware of.

So it has Hot swap capabilties built in for the data (cabling), but doesn't have the software support in the client edition of OS X. Effectively useless.

And the power section doesn't have the circuits needed for Hot Pluggable devices either. So there is the possibility to damage the PSU. Now the size of the PSU used helps, and given the average power usages posted, I don't think it should be worried about, but specific use can change this (really high avg. draw).

 

[Project Alice]

Resurrecting this thread.

First off to address a couple older replies, you CANNOT fry a SATA computer buy hot-swapping drives. SATA by nature is hot-swappable regardless if it's supported or not.

Here's why I'm replying to this thread though; My Mac Pro 4,1>5,1 is running Mojave, and Windows 10. Under Windows, I can hot swap drives, and have them be recognized. Under Mac OS, not so much. I can eject the drive, but it does not recognize that a new one is installed until a reboot. So this absolutely is a software issue. Which I figured being as every SATA PC I've ever owned would hot-swap regardless of what the manufacture says except Apple machines.

 

[Ludacrisvp]

I actually hot swapped a SSD in my 3,1 the other day on 10.13.6.
I unmounted the drive's partitions in disk utility then removed it, booted it up and down in another machine then put it back into the 3,1 and after a few moments it showed up again.

 

[AidenShaw]

First off to address a couple older replies, you CANNOT fry a SATA computer buy hot-swapping drives. SATA by nature is hot-swappable regardless if it's supported or not.

Note that hot-swap drives are usually mounted on a sled or tray that holds the drive in the proper alignment for the connectors. Note also that the traces on the drive's connectors are different lengths, so that the connections are sequenced properly.

It is possible to fry a drive by manually connecting SATA power/signal cables, if they are at an angle and don't sequence properly. I've done it (only once), and got a black burn area on the drive's circuit board - and a dead drive.