The hard drives in the HD24 are hot-swappable (unlike SCSI drives on many other systems), which means that you can insert or take out a drive without turning the HD24's power off first. A hard drive can be installed at any time. However, there is a procedure to follow before pulling a drive out. Each drive bay has a small light next to it showing the drive's status. As long as a drive's light is OFF, you can pull it out. However, if the light is green (ready) or red (active), a
disk must be dismounted and spun down before pulling it out. Using the Drive 1/Drive 2 buttons, you may dismount and remove either drive at any time except during recording. The
system will not allow the user to dismount a drive from the front panel drive buttons while it is currently in record. If a drive is installed during recording, the system will wait until the unit is stopped before powering up the drive.