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sATA hot plug disabled by default in BIOS (why?)

asheenlevrai
By asheenlevrai
in New Builds and Planning
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Hi 🙂

 

Every BIOS I ever encountered had sATA hot plug feature disabled by default.

Why is that?

What would be the downside of enabling hotplug on all sATA ports?

To me it sounds like a good idea since I could plug/unplug sATA drives without the need to reboot, right?

Or am I missing something obvious here?

 

Thank you very much in advance for your help

Best

-a-

 

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Well to the average noob, unplugging data drives during operation can be a very bad idea and lead to data corruption. I'm guessing the option is disabled by default to establish consequences and warnings (In the form of a sudden shutdown or BSOD) to people that don't know when and when not to remove a drive. But for people who do know what they are doing, u can disable this in the BIOS. 

 

Just a guess, but it is also possible that there is a smarter reason for why, something that doesn't have to deal with humans being stupid.

Fuck you scalpers, fuck you scammers, fuck all of you jerks that charge way too much to tech-illiterate people. 

Unless I say I am speaking from experience or can confirm my expertise, assume it is an educated guess.

Current setup: Ryzen 5 3600, MSI MPG B550, 2x8GB DDR4-3200, RX 5600 XT (+120 core, +320 Mem), 1TB WD SN550, 1TB Team MP33, 2TB Seagate Barracuda Compute, 500GB Samsung 860 Evo, Corsair 4000D Airflow, 650W 80+ Gold. Razer peripherals. 

Also have a Alienware Alpha R1: i3-4170T, GTX 860M (≈ a 750 Ti). 2x4GB DDR3L-1600, Crucial MX500

My past and current projects: VR Flight Sim: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/nathanpete/saved/#view=dG38Jx (Done!)

A do it all server for educational use: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/nathanpete/saved/#view=vmmNcf (Cancelled)

Replacement of my friend's PC nicknamed Donkey, going from 2nd gen i5 to Zen+ R5: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/nathanpete/saved/#view=WmsW4D (Done!)

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Yeah. I never meant like it was an issue or something. I just don't understand why they decide to disable it by default while it could be useful if enabled by default. I am wondering if there is any downside associated with this setting being turned ON.

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When it is on, you'll see the drive reported differently in the OS too, and you can "eject" it like with USB drives. Imagine the pain of doing that by accident. Probably no easy way to recover other than by rebooting. Also I think Windows wont let you install on a removable drive.

Gaming system: R7 7800X3D, Asus ROG Strix B650E-F Gaming Wifi, Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE ARGB, Corsair Vengeance 2x 32GB 6000C30, RTX 4070, MSI MPG A850G, Fractal Design North, Samsung 990 Pro 2TB, Acer Predator XB241YU 24" 1440p 144Hz G-Sync + HP LP2475w 24" 1200p 60Hz wide gamut
Productivity system: i9-7980XE, Asus X299 TUF mark 2, Noctua D15, 64GB ram (mixed), RTX 3070, NZXT E850, GameMax Abyss, Samsung 980 Pro 2TB, random 1080p + 720p displays.
Gaming laptop: Lenovo Legion 5, 5800H, RTX 3070, Kingston DDR4 3200C22 2x16GB 2Rx8, Kingston Fury Renegade 1TB + Crucial P1 1TB SSD, 165 Hz IPS 1080p G-Sync Compatible

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3 minutes ago, asheenlevrai said:

I am wondering if there is any downside associated with this setting being turned ON.

No, not really. SATA hot plug can be very handy. I don't see a reason not to have it on. 

 

Just now, porina said:

When it is on, you'll see the drive reported differently in the OS too, and you can "eject" it like with USB drives. Imagine the pain of doing that by accident. Probably no easy way to recover other than by rebooting. Also I think Windows wont let you install on a removable drive.

I've never seen this setting affect Windows. It still sees the drive as a normal SATA drive, and will install just fine. It also shouldn't let you eject the disk, even if that option is shown. 

Phobos: AMD Ryzen 7 2700, 16GB 3000MHz DDR4, ASRock B450 Steel Legend, 8GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070, 2GB Nvidia GeForce GT 1030, 1TB Samsung SSD 980, 450W Corsair CXM, Corsair Carbide 175R, Windows 10 Pro

 

Polaris: Intel Xeon E5-2697 v2, 32GB 1600MHz DDR3, ASRock X79 Extreme6, 12GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080, 6GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, 1TB Crucial MX500, 750W Corsair RM750, Antec SX635, Windows 10 Pro

 

Pluto: Intel Core i7-2600, 32GB 1600MHz DDR3, ASUS P8Z68-V, 4GB XFX AMD Radeon RX 570, 8GB ASUS AMD Radeon RX 570, 1TB Samsung 860 EVO, 3TB Seagate BarraCuda, 750W EVGA BQ, Fractal Design Focus G, Windows 10 Pro for Workstations

 

York (NAS): Intel Core i5-2400, 16GB 1600MHz DDR3, HP Compaq OEM, 240GB Kingston V300 (boot), 3x2TB Seagate BarraCuda, 320W HP PSU, HP Compaq 6200 Pro, TrueNAS CORE (12.0)

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1 minute ago, asheenlevrai said:

Yeah. I never meant like it was an issue or something. I just don't understand why they decide to disable it by default while it could be useful if enabled by default. I am wondering if there is any downside associated with this setting being turned ON.

Wild guess: People who don't know what they are doing and decide to unplug stuff when there computer hangs bc the SATA HDD is being very slow? Which has the chance to corrupt data due to improper removal during a time when the HDD is busy.  A lot more people who don't know what they are doing exist  than people like us, so they disable it by default to help those people. 

 

But maybe @porinais onto something.

Fuck you scalpers, fuck you scammers, fuck all of you jerks that charge way too much to tech-illiterate people. 

Unless I say I am speaking from experience or can confirm my expertise, assume it is an educated guess.

Current setup: Ryzen 5 3600, MSI MPG B550, 2x8GB DDR4-3200, RX 5600 XT (+120 core, +320 Mem), 1TB WD SN550, 1TB Team MP33, 2TB Seagate Barracuda Compute, 500GB Samsung 860 Evo, Corsair 4000D Airflow, 650W 80+ Gold. Razer peripherals. 

Also have a Alienware Alpha R1: i3-4170T, GTX 860M (≈ a 750 Ti). 2x4GB DDR3L-1600, Crucial MX500

My past and current projects: VR Flight Sim: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/nathanpete/saved/#view=dG38Jx (Done!)

A do it all server for educational use: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/nathanpete/saved/#view=vmmNcf (Cancelled)

Replacement of my friend's PC nicknamed Donkey, going from 2nd gen i5 to Zen+ R5: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/nathanpete/saved/#view=WmsW4D (Done!)

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28 minutes ago, BondiBlue said:

It also shouldn't let you eject the disk, even if that option is shown. 

It does. For a long time I've used a case with an HDD slot at the top to plug my backup drive with the corresponding port set to hotplug, and that makes a drive on that port appear in the removeable devices list, ejecting does behave as expected, and restrictions for removable drives are enforced.

 

So yes, it's off by default because no normal user has a use for it, and it has the detriment of appearing as ejectable. I haven't checked in a long time but normally as it's considered as removable write caching should be disabled by default, which would lead to way lower perfromance as well. 

F@H
Desktop: i9-13900K, ASUS Z790-E, 64GB DDR5-6000 CL36, RTX3080, 2TB MP600 Pro XT, 2TB SX8200Pro, 2x16TB Ironwolf RAID0, Corsair HX1200, Antec Vortex 360 AIO, Thermaltake Versa H25 TG, Samsung 4K curved 49" TV, 23" secondary, Mountain Everest Max

Mobile SFF rig: i9-9900K, Noctua NH-L9i, Asrock Z390 Phantom ITX-AC, 32GB, GTX1070, 2x1TB SX8200Pro RAID0, 2x5TB 2.5" HDD RAID0, Athena 500W Flex (Noctua fan), Custom 4.7l 3D printed case

 

Asus Zenbook UM325UA, Ryzen 7 5700u, 16GB, 1TB, OLED

 

GPD Win 2

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2 hours ago, BondiBlue said:

I've never seen this setting affect Windows. It still sees the drive as a normal SATA drive, and will install just fine.

The only time I ever tried enabling that setting was trying to get secure erase working on SSDs, since they apparently need a power cycle to disable the protection that is on by default. I never got SE working though.

 

2 hours ago, BondiBlue said:

It also shouldn't let you eject the disk, even if that option is shown. 

Normally you should eject to remove the drive safely, even if most of the time we don't do this with USB sticks.

Gaming system: R7 7800X3D, Asus ROG Strix B650E-F Gaming Wifi, Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE ARGB, Corsair Vengeance 2x 32GB 6000C30, RTX 4070, MSI MPG A850G, Fractal Design North, Samsung 990 Pro 2TB, Acer Predator XB241YU 24" 1440p 144Hz G-Sync + HP LP2475w 24" 1200p 60Hz wide gamut
Productivity system: i9-7980XE, Asus X299 TUF mark 2, Noctua D15, 64GB ram (mixed), RTX 3070, NZXT E850, GameMax Abyss, Samsung 980 Pro 2TB, random 1080p + 720p displays.
Gaming laptop: Lenovo Legion 5, 5800H, RTX 3070, Kingston DDR4 3200C22 2x16GB 2Rx8, Kingston Fury Renegade 1TB + Crucial P1 1TB SSD, 165 Hz IPS 1080p G-Sync Compatible

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4 minutes ago, porina said:

Normally you should eject to remove the drive safely, even if most of the time we don't do this with USB sticks.

I meant the drive Windows is running from. 

Phobos: AMD Ryzen 7 2700, 16GB 3000MHz DDR4, ASRock B450 Steel Legend, 8GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070, 2GB Nvidia GeForce GT 1030, 1TB Samsung SSD 980, 450W Corsair CXM, Corsair Carbide 175R, Windows 10 Pro

 

Polaris: Intel Xeon E5-2697 v2, 32GB 1600MHz DDR3, ASRock X79 Extreme6, 12GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080, 6GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, 1TB Crucial MX500, 750W Corsair RM750, Antec SX635, Windows 10 Pro

 

Pluto: Intel Core i7-2600, 32GB 1600MHz DDR3, ASUS P8Z68-V, 4GB XFX AMD Radeon RX 570, 8GB ASUS AMD Radeon RX 570, 1TB Samsung 860 EVO, 3TB Seagate BarraCuda, 750W EVGA BQ, Fractal Design Focus G, Windows 10 Pro for Workstations

 

York (NAS): Intel Core i5-2400, 16GB 1600MHz DDR3, HP Compaq OEM, 240GB Kingston V300 (boot), 3x2TB Seagate BarraCuda, 320W HP PSU, HP Compaq 6200 Pro, TrueNAS CORE (12.0)

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19 minutes ago, BondiBlue said:

I meant the drive Windows is running from. 

 

It won't let you do that of course but a 2nd data drive yes, and as mentioned you need to reboot (or open the PC to unplug/replug) to get it back...

F@H
Desktop: i9-13900K, ASUS Z790-E, 64GB DDR5-6000 CL36, RTX3080, 2TB MP600 Pro XT, 2TB SX8200Pro, 2x16TB Ironwolf RAID0, Corsair HX1200, Antec Vortex 360 AIO, Thermaltake Versa H25 TG, Samsung 4K curved 49" TV, 23" secondary, Mountain Everest Max

Mobile SFF rig: i9-9900K, Noctua NH-L9i, Asrock Z390 Phantom ITX-AC, 32GB, GTX1070, 2x1TB SX8200Pro RAID0, 2x5TB 2.5" HDD RAID0, Athena 500W Flex (Noctua fan), Custom 4.7l 3D printed case

 

Asus Zenbook UM325UA, Ryzen 7 5700u, 16GB, 1TB, OLED

 

GPD Win 2

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15 hours ago, Kilrah said:

It does. For a long time I've used a case with an HDD slot at the top to plug my backup drive with the corresponding port set to hot-plug, and that makes a drive on that port appear in the removable devices list, ejecting does behave as expected, and restrictions for removable drives are enforced.

 

So yes, it's off by default because no normal user has a use for it, and it has the detriment of appearing as ejectable. I haven't checked in a long time but normally as it's considered as removable write caching should be disabled by default, which would lead to way lower performance as well. 

Thanks a lot for your answer 🙂

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