SATA (hot) swapping for backup

[David Abrahams]

Hi,

I recently bought a pair of SATA drives on which to do weekly backups
of my server.  I also got a cool drive tray that allows me to pop the
disks in and out of the machine easily:
http://www.cooldrives.com/sata-serial-ata-mobile-rack-enclosure-lcd.html
You can remove the drive from the machine by turning a key -- which
powers it down -- and pulling on the handle.

My problems: 

1. If I boot the server with no drive in the bay or with the drive
   power off, it is never detected, even after powering it on.  Is
   there a way to get that to work?

2. I'm not 100% sure that unmounting the drive, powering it off,
   removing it, and putting a new disk in its place is legit.  Can
   anyone confirm?  My motherboard *does* claim to support SATA
   hotswap, but I'm not sure if Linux supports it.

Lastly, if there's any standard way to automate backup jobs (mounting
disks, rsync or whatever, unmounting, etc.) I'd appreciate a
reference.  I can always use cron scripts but I imagine someone has
probably come up with something better.

Thanks very much in advance,

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
www.boost-consulting.com