Want to power up hard drives separately

[cigarman]

Does anyone know of a way to manually power on/off up to six hard drives (sata) by some sort of switch setup that might be available? I know I could rig something with switches and soldering of wires, etc, but am hoping something might be available to facilitate this--like some of hard drive controller panel, but haven't found anything.

Do they make power supplies that can enable triggering on/off separate hard drives (drives used for storage)?

I know that a swap drive tray/cradle thing would do the trick--one that actually powers off the drive with a turn of a key, but would prefer the above-mentioned method.

 

[DelJo63]

hum; interesting -- but why?

 

[cigarman]

Because there's no reason to always have powered on drives used for storage purposes only. It would save on the life of those drives.

I've found that a lot of people just keep their computers running 24-7-365 for some reason, as if they were afraid to power it down for fear that it won't boot up or something. I've fixed a lot units that gave me the indication that re-booting was anathema to their respective owners. I can understand keeping a unit on for certain round-the-clock services like Skype, for example, where if you turn the machine off, you turn off your Skype as well, but just to keep it always on for no other reason...I don't understand.

We don't leave the engines running in our cars after we get out of them, so...?

 

[mailpup]

But you only have one engine in your car. If you had several engines in your car, your analogy would be more apt.

I don't suppose you'd want to put the other hard drives in external USB enclosures. You could switch them off and on at will then.

 

[zipperman]

Some will

usb drives are hot wired and can be plugged or unplugged as needed.

If you have these types not for partitions .

 

[cigarman]

It will be a swap drive system I guess. A usb external drive case is what I'm using now. The swap drive thingy would mean sata II speed.

 

[zipperman]

There is another way

It will be a swap drive system I guess. A usb external drive case is what I'm using now. The swap drive thingy would mean sata II speed.

Yours is the easiest.
But a cdrom slot can be used as a hard drive case.You remove one and
put in another.But since dvd's it's best to have a burner and a player
useing cases that usually have 2 slots.
You have the best for your needs,but it does require swapping.
But you OS HD should be a normal install and the OS first as C: