Question 1

Is the HD connector on the physical HD used for the insertion into the back plane or is there a connector it attaches to in the tray?

Accepted Answer

The tray has an opening in the back just large enough for the HDD to connect directly to the inside of the back plane.  The back plane is hot swap capable as long as the controller (onboard or add-on card} supports it.  Some motherboards have connection specific (drive number) settings in bios to enable or disable hot swap.  Most SAS add-on cards are set to hot swap by default.  If you boot from the drive, you will be shutting down the computer to remove the drive, and hot swap should be disabled for that connection.

Question 2

Has anybody attempted to utilize SAS drives in this particular hot-swap rack (iStarUSA T-7-SA Rugged 5.25" to 3.5" SATA SAS 6 Gbps HDD Hot-Swap Rack)?
Thank you!

Accepted Answer

I can't specifically answer your question.  I haven't tried a SAS drive in the adapter. While the specs say in supports SAS I/II.  The interface on the back plane, I have does have a socket for nor pass thru pins 8-14 of the SAS interface.  Best answer I can give you.

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