Yes, any drives accessible from the outside of the system are hot-swappable, and you SHOULD swap the drive "hot" when you replace it.  Simply pull the old drive, wait 30 seconds or so, then insert the new one.  If the drive is flashing an alternating amber/green, then the drive is not yet offline and needs to be forced offline before replacing.
Hi All, I have a an older PowerEdge 1950. it has a PERC5I controller and 3 36G SAS drives. One of the drives is blinking yellow and needs to be replaced. This is an older server that i adopted from the previous admin. It has Redhat Linux installed. With this controller are these drives hot swappable? Can I just purchase a new drive and switch it out for it to rebuild? PowerEdge 1950 G8762 Hard Drive, 36G, Serial AttachedScsi, 3, 10K, 2.5, FJT, AL9SEPERC5I, SERIAL ATTACHED SCSI, 1950, 2950
Drive replacement Poweredge 1950