The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

I figured it wise to go with power first. You're probably right. An arc might have caused the problem that happened. Perhaps enough so to cause an amperage strain to the other drives.

 

You're never meant to hot-swap molex connectors, one because of the arcing potential, and two because it's possible for them to make contact up-side down if you don't get them the right way round when plugging them in!

 

Oman7,

Power first, then the data cable!

Russ

 

The sata power cable is what I was plugging in, when bluescreen occurred. The data cable was not plugged in yet. Molex is not even in the equation The connector is at the end of the chain, if that means anything. It's a good thing hotswapping is something I seldom do without a dock :S

 

I just have an external adapter that converts SATA/PATA into eSATA and a SATA/Molex power adapter. Wire-tied together and both sitting up on my desk ready to go. CBA to remember the brandname as it's been worn off but it's generic. Pretty solidly built though, have been abusing it badly for years now. I really do need to get a powered USB hub to simplify moving my case. As it is I have most of the back ports full, not counting my 3 piece racing wheel and 3 piece flight stick setup :S It gets tangled easily.

 

I have one of those external adapters as well. I use it for a Lite-on BD-Rom drive. Dandy! It's connected to a usb sata adapter. Since I put a fan controller in my bay, I had to do it that way.

 

I used to use one of those external SATA->eSATA cables to my drives as well, but they picked up massive numbers of CRC errors so I gave up on it in the end. Now I use proper eSATA to hotswap docks, two of these in fact:

 

Have been meaning to get something like that, would certainly make it simpler. Just cba though given small number of drives I currently use. 9 now I think. Hardly worth investing in equipment over. And if anything needs to be transferred that badly I can always transfer through the network.

 

My thermaltake BlackX is awesome! I just wish I could get a decent eSATA cable I have too many dropouts with my current. Although it seems to be the connection point on the tower lately. Probably bent the damn thing.

Now i'd like a dock that supports 3Tb. They're probably currently expensive though!

 

Pretty sure the front port on the HAF doesn't work on my case (much like everything else on it). Having two rear ports is handy though, those haven't caused me any problems. Despite being of just as suspect quality as the HAF, the front ports on the NZXT Whisper seem to work fine.

 

I don't use the front HAF port. Once upon a time, I was getting dropouts. I gave up on it. I added one of those adapter plates to the back, which adapts sata to eSATA. My guess is, I pushed the tower too close to the wall, and bent the connector. It has two ports, and I only use one. Gonna have to switch to the other, and see if that helps. Just haven't gotten around to it. I need to. When the Dock is connected via usb, the drives like to idle. I don't want them to! LOL!

 

Yeah, those aren't proper eSATA ports either. Like I say, native eSATA ports straight off the controller have proven no problem for me.

 

Ahh yes! I wouldn't mind at least one of those. Apparently my board is grossly outdated LOL! I need to upgrade for multiple reasons now!

I'm an idiot!!! I have two!!!!!!!

 

Every single port and LED on my HAF works fine... Likewise my side panel isn't warped and certainly wouldn't just warp on its own. You ever think you just beat on it Sam? I can't believe you guys have issues with the ports or LEDs. I have a few friends with HAFs as well and they all have no problems with the ports.

 

Considering that most of the people I know who have coolermaster cases have the exact same issue, and the NZXTs that have been to LANs more often all have perfectly working ports, no, it's nothing to do with my usage

 

I used my port once, Jeff. It failed after 30 minutes. Disconnected and tried again. Fail! Whether it's the total length of cable, or the shoddiness of the build, I guess I'll never know. The boards eSATA ports will serve me fine. I can't believe I forgot about those :S

 

What a shame that eSATA isn't more like USB, or HDMI. Those are pretty solid connectors. Haven't had problems with those. eSATA just doesn't feel very snug.
Back ports seem ok so far

 

eSATA's not so bad, it's regular SATA that's the problem, hence SATA->eSATA adapters often proving problematic.

 

Well I tried to hotswap my internals again. Bluescreen once again. The power cable was fine. But right when I plugged in the data cable to the first swap, I heard the disconnect sound, Twice! Looked at the screen, and my icons disappeared. SHortly after, blue!
You know what? Screw it LOL! I don't swap internals very often. Not very often at all. And given the data involved, I'd rather not tempt fate! I'll just power her down each time. It doesn't take that long

 

Likewise I always have a backup plan. A few extra cables left free to just hook up internally. I'm running some old and somewhat questionable drives, along side my newer 1TB Greens. SO as of currently I'm being pretty careful with my drives. Staying internal and unmoved mostly...

Been looking into a few more of those 1TB drives to finally replace some of the older 500GB drives I have sitting full of stuff. Ideally would like about ~10TB mirrored ie 20 drives. Expensive though. Something to look at in the future.

Damn you mechanical storage for having a tangible lifespan and damn you SSDs for not being cheap or reliable enough for large capacity storage. If SSDs could get some improvements they'd be a great insurance policy for your storage but as of right now they're even more of a liability than mechanicals...