I don't believe that you would blow any hardware by hot plugging. I have been known to hot-plug SCSI successfully countless times. Never had a problem. Connect drive, turn on, scan/mount with SCSIProbe. Then drag to trash or Command+Y before pulling it out. That actually works although it isn't technically supported.

What I suggested would not use SCSIProbe or eject properly. This is where you could lose data.