Removeable hard drives

I want to get some removable hard drive cartridges
from dataport http://www.cru-dataport.com/
For use in a sata system (asus a8n-sli)

I want to be able to have two frames installed
into the 5'25" bays, with a hard drive cartridge
occupying each one.Only one will be powered up
at a time. If each hard drive cartridge uses a separate
sata cable back to the mainboard, will the system
boot up from whatever hard drive is powered up?

Or must sata have the boot drive always plugged
into connector 0 ? I do not want to have to enter
the bios setup every time I want to boot from a
different hard drive. So can sata boot from any
Sata connector ?

Thanks for your help.

Mike wrote:
I want to get some removable hard drive cartridges
from dataport http://www.cru-dataport.com/
For use in a sata system (asus a8n-sli)

I want to be able to have two frames installed
into the 5'25" bays, with a hard drive cartridge
occupying each one.Only one will be powered up
at a time. If each hard drive cartridge uses a separate
sata cable back to the mainboard, will the system
boot up from whatever hard drive is powered up?

Or must sata have the boot drive always plugged
into connector 0 ? I do not want to have to enter
the bios setup every time I want to boot from a
different hard drive. So can sata boot from any
Sata connector ?

Thanks for your help.



Take a look at the Dataport site. There are also IDE/ATA
removable drive enclosures in addition to SATA ones. And
also SCSI. Why worry? Get the hardware setup that achieves
the desired solution.

I already have the Sata drives

Mike





"GHalleck" wrote in message
...




Take a look at the Dataport site. There are also IDE/ATA
removable drive enclosures in addition to SATA ones. And
also SCSI. Why worry? Get the hardware setup that achieves
the desired solution.

In article , "Mike"
wrote:

I want to get some removable hard drive cartridges
from dataport http://www.cru-dataport.com/
For use in a sata system (asus a8n-sli)

I want to be able to have two frames installed
into the 5'25" bays, with a hard drive cartridge
occupying each one.Only one will be powered up
at a time. If each hard drive cartridge uses a separate
sata cable back to the mainboard, will the system
boot up from whatever hard drive is powered up?

Or must sata have the boot drive always plugged
into connector 0 ? I do not want to have to enter
the bios setup every time I want to boot from a
different hard drive. So can sata boot from any
Sata connector ?

Thanks for your help.

Do you currently own one SATA drive, suitable for
internal installation ? Try plugging it to SATA port
1, set the BIOS to boot from the disk, then shut
down, and plug the drive to port 0. Does the BIOS
select a new drive to boot from on its own or not ?
Is the result what you wanted ? If so, go and buy
your trays.

I expect the BIOS remembers the port number it booted
from previously, and the behavior might be hard to
predict, as to what it will latch onto next.
Experimentation will likely get the answer faster
than a Google search.

Some BIOS have a popup F key for drive selection
early in the POST. But the Asus manuals never mention
this, so it is hard to get information on whether the
popup exists or not. I believe the popup allows a
temporary selection of the boot device, which is a bit
closer to the functionality that you want.

The Award web page would have been a good place to get
information on the BIOS (as the boot code would have
been written by Award and not Asus), but since Phoenix
bought out Award, Award has been buried on the site.

On the FAQ page, this is the only entry concerning
boot disks and A8N-SLI, and it won't help you:

http://support.asus.com.tw/faq/faq_r...Language=en-us

HTH,
Paul

"Mike" wrote in message
...
I want to get some removable hard drive cartridges
from dataport http://www.cru-dataport.com/
For use in a sata system (asus a8n-sli)

I want to be able to have two frames installed
into the 5'25" bays, with a hard drive cartridge
occupying each one.Only one will be powered up
at a time. If each hard drive cartridge uses a separate
sata cable back to the mainboard, will the system
boot up from whatever hard drive is powered up?

Or must sata have the boot drive always plugged
into connector 0 ? I do not want to have to enter
the bios setup every time I want to boot from a
different hard drive. So can sata boot from any
Sata connector ?

Thanks for your help.


Mike:
It should work just the way you expect it to. When you disconnect the mobile
rack that's connected to SATA connector 0 and connect the rack that's
connected to SATA connector 1, the system will boot to the latter without
the need for you entering the BIOS and changing the boot order. Needless to
say, we're assuming that both drives contain a bootable OS, right?

BTW, I assume you're referring to the DataPort 10 model, yes? We haven't
worked with that model although we have worked with a variety of other SATA
mobile racks (not DataPort). On a quick check I made on Google it seems that
device sells for nearly $100 (incl. shipping), much more expensive than the
racks we work with. Is that about the price you're planning on? Was there
any specific reason why you chose that particular rack? Have you previously
worked with DataPort devices? Judging from its description & data sheet, it
does appear to be a sturdy unit and it does support the 3Gb/s SATA data
interface.
Anna