Cold Plugging

Definition - What does Cold Plugging mean?

Cold plugging refers to the situation where a computer must be powered down in order to add or remove a component or to allow a device to synchronize data with the computer. Cold plugging is often used as an additional precaution to ensure a component is not damaged while being removed or replaced. It is especially used with modules that are volatile to static electricity such as circuit boards. A cold plug device that is hot swapped can cause malfunction and damage to the device or the system. Also known as cold swapping.

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Techopedia explains Cold Plugging

In most PCs, the CPU and memory are examples cold pluggable components. That being said, CPUs are not always cold-pluggable -- they are often hot pluggable in high-end servers and mainframes. he opposite of cold plugging is hot plugging. A hot pluggable device can be replaced without shutting down the computer. A common hot swappable device that most people have used is anything using a universal serial bus (USB) connection. In certain contexts, a cold plug is defined as having the ability to remove or add a component without rebooting but it does not have the capability to identify the changes until rebooting. (In this case a hot plug would be defined as having the ability to identify changes without rebooting.)