Can I cut sata power to a hard drive while the PC is running?

Question

If I have write caching disabled on my internal hard drive, is it safe to disconnect SATA power without ejecting (using a program such as Hotswap!)?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Normally speaking, hot swapping internal SATA harddrives would be risking the safety of your data. Internal computer components are usually cold-pluggable since the computer system must be powered down to add or remove them.  You need to stop the drive from running first as it can cause all sorts of problems.

Using software such as Hotswap reportedly allows you to take a harddrive out without shutting down the computer, but you are technically not hot swapping. You are telling the system to safely "power down" (deactivate) the required drive just like you would with an external USB drive.

Whether it is safe to swap internal drives over in this manner, or not, is down to personal opinion. I personally don't like the idea as poking around inside your computer whilst it is running, disconnecting and reconnecting internal leads is asking for trouble in my mind.