I am a little confused about this. I understand that hot swappable hard drives are considerably more expensive than a standard internal drive, but is that due to the tray?
If I have a case that already has multiple hot swap trays in it can I use regular hard drives in there and still have hot swapping functionality?
If I need specific hot swap drives, can I still use standard drives in hot swap trays and just lose the functionality or should I avoid a case with hot swap trays all together if I don't plan on using the right drives. Reason I ask, is because id like to have the ability to upgrade to HS drives without buying a new case.
Best Answer
Assuming that you're talking about modern SATA drives, most cases take standard internal drives in their hotswap bays. There's nothing unusual about the drives, you can use existing ones.
The concern however is the motherboard - hotswap support isn't always on by default. You may even have to enable it on a port-by-port basis. Don't just expect it to magically work, though.