How to hot swap a drive in a ThunderBay or Mercury Elite Pro Quad enclosure?

Hot-swap capability means you can replace a drive in your enclosure while it remains powered on and connected to your computer, without affecting the other drives or volumes. This is useful for replacing a failed drive in a RAID array or swapping drives without powering down your entire system.

Enclosures that support hot swapping:

• ThunderBay series (all models)
• Mercury Elite Pro Quad

Hot Swap Procedure

Step 1: Prepare for Drive Removal

If the drive you’re removing is part of a RAID volume with other drives:

• The RAID volume will enter degraded mode when you remove the drive
• Other drives in the volume will continue operating normally
• Do not remove a second drive until the first drive is replaced and rebuilt

If the drive contains a standalone (non-RAID) volume:

• Unmount the volume first (Finder → Eject, or SoftRAID → Unmount)
• Wait 1 minute after unmounting

Step 2: Remove the Drive

• Identify the correct drive - Make sure you’re removing the right drive (check drive labels in SoftRAID and use the “Blink Disk Light” feature)
• (Best Practice) Unmount the volume, and wait for activity lights - Ensure the drive’s activity light is not flashing
• Unscrew the drive tray - Remove the screw securing the drive tray to the enclosure
• Pull the drive out 1 inch - Gently pull the drive tray out about 1 inch from the connector
• Wait 1 minute - Allow the drive to fully spin down
• Fully remove the drive - Pull the drive tray completely out of the enclosure

The enclosure remains powered on throughout this process.

Step 3: Insert the Replacement Drive

• Prepare the new drive - If using a bare drive, install it in an OWC drive tray
• Align the drive tray - Make sure the drive tray is properly oriented
• Slide the drive in - Gently push the drive tray into the enclosure until it’s fully seated
• Secure the drive - Tighten the screw to secure the drive tray to the enclosure
• Wait for detection - The drive should appear in SoftRAID within a few seconds

Step 4: Rebuild the Volume (if RAID)

For RAID volumes:

• Open SoftRAID application
• Select the disk tile
• “Initialize” the disk.
  Note: We highly recommend all new drives undergo “certification” before usage
• Select the volume tile
• Go to Volume menu → Add Disk
• Select the new drive
• SoftRAID will automatically begin rebuilding the volume

You can continue using the volume during the rebuild process.

Important Notes

Hot swap vs. Hot plug:

• Hot swap means you can remove and replace drives while powered on
• Both ThunderBolt and USB support hot-plugging by design
• OWC Thunderbays and Mercury Elite Pro Quad enclsoures specifically support hot-swapping of individual drives. If you have another brand, check with the manufacturer.

RAID volume considerations:

• Never remove two drives simultaneously from a RAID 5 volume (data loss will occur)
• Wait for the “rebuild complete” on all volumes before removing additional drives
• Monitor rebuild progress in SoftRAID application. Ensure the rebuild is progressing by watching the “i/o counter in the volume tile, you should see progress and a “time remaining” indicator that is not -.–.

Non-RAID volumes:

• Always unmount standalone volumes before hot-swapping
• Wait the full 1 minute after unmounting before removing the drive

Drive compatibility:

• SoftRAID supports “any” brands of drives, as long as they are reliable. You can “mix and match” different brands, also. Use drives of equal or greater capacity when replacing drives in RAID arrays.
  Note: some drives are 4kn drives, a special configuration of drive that has “raw” 4K sector sizes. Do not mix standard (512 or 512e K drives) with “4kn” drives.
• Mixing drive speeds (e.g., 5400 RPM and 7200 RPM) is acceptable, but may reduce overall performance
• SSD and HDD mixing is supported but not recommended for best performance, except in RAID 1 or RAID 1+0 configurations, where the SSD would be set as the Primary disks.