I recently built a new system and one of the requirements was a "Hot Swap" bay so that I can swap in a drive temporarily for a project, or put a backup drive in the bay, make the backup, then remove the backup drive.
My old case (a Thermaltake MK1 Cruiser) had a hot swap drive bay built into the top of the case, and it has been used extensively, as that hot swap drive bay has been used to make backups - insert the first 14 TB drive, start the "A" part of the backup, remove the first drive and insert the second 14 TB drive, start the "B" part of the backup, etc. That process has worked extremely well over years and I was very disappointed to not be able to find a case with a built-in hot swap drive bay.
I found a case that has two 5.25" external drive bays (Thermaltake Core V71) and bought the StarTek Trayless Hard Drive Hot Swap Bay for one of the two 5.25" external drive bays.
Before I continue, I should pass along some reminders regarding "Hot Swap" and Windows and drive letters.
First, generally you need to go into the motherboard BIOS settings and enable "Hot Swap". In my experience every BIOS likes to call the setting something different, so read your BIOS manual until you find it. Also, sometimes it is a "SATA" setting, sometimes it is a PCI-E setting, so read the BIOS manual cover to cover.
Second, in Windows 10 (I'm avoiding Windows 11) you will need to enable "Hot Swap" in Device manager. As Microsoft like to change things, and if I provide instructions today, Microsoft will change things by tomorrow, I'm just going to suggest you do a search for the "current" way to enable "Hot Swap" on a drive.
Third, in Windows Microsoft likes to put "Hot Swap" devices in the list of drive letters depending upon which other devices exist. For example, all of my M.2 SSDs have low letters (C, E, F), and my mechanical 14 TB hard drive started out as drive "G", but I had to move it to "L" because when I plugged in a USB flash drive, or a camera's flash memory card, or inserted a hard drive into the "Hot Swap" drive bay, Windows decided to "change" the drive letter assigned to the 14 TB hard drive and put the USB flash drive, or memory card, or "Hot Swap" drive bay's drive where the 14 TB hard drive was, and give it a new drive letter like "H" or "J" or ... The net result was that the 14 TB internal hard drive became drive "L" (for now) and Windows assigns whatever it wants to the drive letters G, H, I, J, and K. What I'll probably do is assign a new drive letter to the 14 TB drive (which started out as "G", then became "L", and will probably end up as "S" or something like that).
Thus, a word of caution...
Make sure there are PLENTY of drive letters left unused between where Windows decides it wants to place your USB Flash drives, camera memory cards, and the "Hot Swap" drive when inserted into the dock, so that you don't have "drive letter chaos" where a program using your "G" drive suddenly finds "G" points to a different drive that doesn't have the directory tree structure and files it expects (been there, got clobbered by that).
Just to be clear, the StarTech Hot Swap drive bay WORKS GREAT! if you have any problems it will probably be with how Windows assigns drive letters.
| Brand | StarTech.com |
|---|---|
| Item model number | HSB1SATSASBA |
| Hardware Platform | PC |
| Operating System | OS independent; No software or drivers required |
| Item Weight | 11.8 ounces |
| Product Dimensions | 7.06 x 5.75 x 1.65 inches |
| Item Dimensions LxWxH | 7.06 x 5.75 x 1.65 inches |
| Color | Aluminum |
| Number of Processors | 1 |
| Hard Drive Interface | Solid State |
| Manufacturer | Startech.com |
| ASIN | B073JJ2FVR |
| Country of Origin | China |
| Is Discontinued By Manufacturer | No |
| Date First Available | June 29, 2017 |
