IBM RS/6000 - Manual (Page 65)

Chapter 3. Hot-Swap Subsystem
The F30 is the first PCI-based RS/6000 server to provide hot-swap disk capability.
The hot-swap subsystem allows the addition or removal of disk drives without
powering-down the system. The hot-swap subsystem also allows applications to
keep running which do not use the disk that has to be replaced or removed.
The hot-swap subsystem uses special, hot-swappable disk carriers that allow you
to easily plug and unplug disks in the system. The connectors, however, have an
estimated lifespan of 500 insertions and removals. If the user expects to insert and
remove a drive daily, it may begin to fail intermittently resulting in a hot-swap
carrier, backplane or drive having to be replaced. This subsystem, therefore, is not
intended to be used as a removable disk subsystem.
The hot-swap subsystem uses a common hardware design and components that
will be used not only in the RS/6000 division but also in several other IBM divisions.
This chapter describes the F30 Hot-Swap subsystem and the features of AIX which
can take of advantage of this capability.
3.1 Components
The hot-swap subsystem hardware is divided into three major components. These
components are shown in Figure 11 and are described below.
Figure 11. Components
Backplane
The backplane card provides connectors and electronics support for up to six
half-height or three full-height 3.5 inch 8 or 16 bit disk drives. The backplane
card includes power management and hot-plug sense logic.
 Copyright IBM Corp. 1996 41