Does the PCI Interface Support Plug-and-play and Hot-swap?
Plug and Play is a standard that allows you to quickly and easily install a hardware device without having to install device drivers or reconfigure the system. Plug and play require both hardware and software support. Windows 98, ME, 2000, and XP all support plug and play, so it depends on whether the computer accessories support plug and play. Installing hardware is even easier with plug-and-play capabilities.
The hot-plugging (hot-plugging or Hot Swap) function is to allow users to take out and replace damaged hard disks, power supplies or boards and other components without shutting down the system or cutting off the power supply, thereby improving the system's ability to recover from disasters in a timely manner, scalability and flexibility, for example, some disk mirroring systems for high-end applications can provide hot-plugging of disks.
In academic terms, it is hot replacement, hot expansion, and hot upgrade. Hot swap first appeared in the server field and was proposed to improve the usability of the server. Usually, the computer usually has a USB interface, which can be hot-swapped. If there is no hot-swap function, even if the disk is damaged without data loss, the user still needs to temporarily shut down the system so that the hard disk can be replaced. With the hot-swap technology, it can be removed directly by simply turning on the connection switch or turning the handle. hard drive, while the system can still function normally without interruption.
The realization of hot plugging requires the support of the following aspects: bus electrical characteristics, motherboard BIOS, operating system, and device drivers. Then we can achieve hot swap as long as we make sure that the environment meets the above specific environment. The current system bus supports some hot-swap technologies, especially since the 586 era, the system bus has increased the expansion of the external bus, so our concerns in this regard can be eliminated. Since 1997, the new BIOS has added support for plug-and-play functions, although this plug-and-play support does not represent full hot-plug support, only hot-add and hot-replace support, this is our Hot swap is the most used technology, so the problem of motherboard BIOS can also be overcome. In terms of the operating system, since Windows 95, it has supported plug and play, but it has limited support for hot plugging. Until NT 4.0, Microsoft began to notice that the NT operating system will be aimed at the server field, and hot plugging in this field is very limited. It is a very critical technology, so the operating system has added full hot-plug support, and this feature has continued to the Windows 2000/XP operating system based on NT technology, so as long as an operating system above NT4. The operating system provides complete support for plugging and unplugging. In terms of drivers, the current drivers for Windows NT, Novell's Netware, and SCO UNIX have integrated the hot-plug function. As long as you select the drivers for the above-operating systems, the last element of hot plug is available.
Generally speaking, a complete hot-plug system includes the hardware of the hot-plug system, the software, and operating system that support hot-plug, the device driver that supports hot-plug, and the user interface that supports hot-plug.
We know that in ordinary computers, USB (Universal Serial Bus) interface devices and IEEE 1394 interface devices can be hot-swapped, while in servers, hot-swappable components are mainly hard disks, CPU, memory, power supply, fans, PCI adapters, network cards, etc.
