On Fri, Jun 6, 2008 at 9:20 AM, Peter Rabbitson [off-list ref] wrote:

Apologies for yet another off-topic thread :)

Since there has been some discussion about not-quite-server grade hardware,
I would like to ask about your experience with SATA controllers that fully
support hotplug. By fully support I mean I can pull a drive, have udev
register it as missing, put it back in - have the device node re-appear in
/dev. To date I am not aware of any consumer grade (i.e. can be found on
newegg) controller/chipset which can actually do this. Does such a card
exist?

What about the AOC-SAT2-MV8?
http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-SAT2-MV8.cfm

It's the least expensive 8 port card I've found.

Have the drivers progressed far enough to support hotswap? It didn't
work last year when I tried it, but I see there have been updates
made.