Adding internal HDD's while the PC is running?

[ConnorMacleod95]

Hey Guys. 

Was just wondering if its bad to add an internal drive while the PC is running?

How about removing one if I've made sure I'm not accessing any of its content? 
Thanks Heaps

[Akolyte]

Removing an HDD from a system while its on will kill the drive, not sure about putting one in.  But just, just dont do it. 

[Chriz6097]

why? just turn it off... its only a minute or two more...

[Rorgash]

the limit to what a HDD can take when running is so low that tapping it can be too much if you are unlucky ;/

[zeibis]

I dont think sata is plug and play

[Createinator]

Yes you can enable Hot Swap in BIOS to add and remove HDD while your system is running. You may lose or possibly corrupt any Data that was in use when you remove the drive. Hot Swapping is not worth all the trouble unless you want this feature for a server.

[ZacDaMan72]

I have ejected an internal drive (laptop drive) in the Drive Manager in Windows 8.1 and it worked. I wouldn't recommend it though.

[LogicalDrm]

Having hot swap slot or bay is the cheaper option for large backups to separate drive. Some Gaming grade cases have hot swap slots or you can buy adapter bay for 5.25'' slot. After that its only matter of choosing which SATA port is designated to act as hot swap. Or you can set them all to be such. Imo if you need to open case for adding and removing drives, you can do it while PC is powered down.

[IdeaStormer]

First off removing a running drive SATA/SAS is very doable, but you have to do it correctly.

 

Yes you can enable Hot Swap in BIOS to add and remove HDD while your system is running. You may lose or possibly corrupt any Data that was in use when you remove the drive. Hot Swapping is not worth all the trouble unless you want this feature for a server.

 

Yes Hot Swap must be enabled in BIOS for the SATA ports you want to use it for, I enable all of them from day one as if you don't its just going to be worse than if you didn't even if you pull the wrong drive like the OS which will be fatal either way so you're not somehow protected by not enabling it. You have to offline the drive from the Disk Management app first before yanking the drive, but once its off line you can remove it without worry of even losing data as its no longer active.

 

Having hot swap slot or bay is the cheaper option for large backups to separate drive. Some Gaming grade cases have hot swap slots or you can buy adapter bay for 5.25'' slot. After that its only matter of choosing which SATA port is designated to act as hot swap. Or you can set them all to be such. Imo if you need to open case for adding and removing drives, you can do it while PC is powered down.

 

How swap bays are nice but may be overkill for those not doing it that often. If you are a user who treats hard drives like floppy discs or CD/DVD's yea, you need to invest in a hot swap bay so you don't end up yanking cables all the time and as we all know the power cables are usually tightly connected and one opps and you may accidentally yank the power to all the drives on the same connector.