I Thought that yes, They are, but only as long as the 3.3V Power Supply is used. If you're using a Molex -> SATA power converter, then it's not.
I have 1TB in an eSATA enclosure. the power brick only supplies 5v & 12v. it swaps just fine. I don't usually just yank the plug though, I use "safely remove hardware"
Really depends on the SATA controller and the drive enclosure. Worst case, just use the 'safely remove hardware' and unplug it, then plug it back in and if it's not recognized then it's not going to let you hot-swap.
^^ what he said. My main system's motherboard let's me hot swap any SATA drive (it even offers the option to "safely remove" drive C: - not that I've ever tried). My HTPC system does not (I really wish it did though).
All Windowses support that. (Well, all decently modern ones at least.) But, you'll have to enable that on hard drives though. Just check the settings of the drive in device manager.
On my system that supports hot-swapping I never had to change any settings to enable it - I was actually somewhat surprised when I first saw the option to "safely remove" my system drive If it's not showing support for it now then it's likely that your chipset does NOT support it. If you really want it perhaps a PCI / PCIe card with the right controller chip would work for you.
So the abit IP35 pro dosent support it? Ill have to check the safely remove hardware thing for esata then. It works for the usb connection though
none of you are saying the right keyword: ACHI if you enable ACHI on controller controlling the eSATA ports (in my iP35 Pro case, it's the jMicron controllers) the eSATA drives will be hotswappable just like USB. only thing it's a bit iffy is that unlike USB. if your drive doesn't spin up, your whole computer will simply hang. not even mouse movements.
ACHI / AHCI Still it requires chipset and driver support. From what quickly I read it sounds like a thing best done when installing the OS. If it can be enabled with a new driver and a BIOS change (and perhaps a reactivation of Windows) then great.
ah haha. thanks. typo on my part. yes, it's best to enable BEFORE installing Windows, after enabling it, it usually means re-install Windows, even if the Windows ports are still emulated IDE for how to enable AHCI on Abit iP35 Pro. see here