WHS + Hot-Swapping

GlenR · **25th September 2007, 06:32 PM**

I've got the opportunity to play with WHS so I spent some time setting it up. Not a bad looking OS, but the reported ability to hot-swap HDDs doesn't seem to be working.

I can remove and add disks to the storage cluster OK, but if I plug a new disk in "on the fly" it doesn't appear in the disk listing, either in disk manager or in the console, although if I remove a disk "hot" it does disappear.

I am assuming this is a hardware thing and that the motherboard I am using just doesn't recognise an added drive on the SATA bus without a reboot. Can someone confirm thsi or have I overlooked something?

GlenR · **25th September 2007, 09:18 PM**

I've been playing around and digging some more and I think I know what the problem is. For hot-swapping to work with SATA you need AHCI enabled I believe. Sadly the Intel ICH8chipset on the Mobo I have doesn't support AHCI.

Can someone confirm that AHCI is a requirement for hot-swap? I'm pretty sure but not 100% certain.

spludge · **25th September 2007, 09:44 PM**

The Gigabyte FAQ says it should have AHCI, from what i can see:

http://tw.giga-byte.com/Support/Moth...88&ClassValue=

I'm not sure if this is the fix for WHS though...

Alternatively, the GA-G33M-DS2R has ICH9R and supports AHCI on all ports - this would be an alternative if you wanted to try that instead.