Hotswapping/mounting a drive

[atchard]

Hi, I had a question about mounting/unmounting an internal sata drive. I have a Windows 10 box, with an ssd and two internal hdd's. What I was wanting to do was have one of the hdds be used for storage, large flat files, etc., and the other hdd be used to back that up, along with backing up the OS from the ssd. What I'm wondering is, is there some convenient way to unmount the backup hdd when it's not needed, and remount it from the OS when it is?

Initially thought hotswapping would be an easy solution, but while the disk unmounts as expected, didn't think about the fact that it seems you need to re-plug the sata cable in order for the drive to be detected again, or at least the machine needs to be power-cycled. As it is an internal drive, it's not really feasible to reconnect it every time I want to have the drive available again, and I don't want to have to restart either. The strange thing is, in the device manager, the ejected drive is still detected, though with a warning saying it has been ejected but not unplugged, and must be reconnected. I would assume that since the OS can tell that a drive is still there, there would be some easy way to have the drive spin back up and be accessible, other than having to unplug and re-plug it back in, but I haven't been able to see any way to do so.

Basically, again, is there some way to unmount and remount an internal sata drive through the OS, whether through hotswapping or some other method?

 

[ArtPog]

I assume you're working with a desktop PC. Would your PC case have an available 5 1/4" external bay that's vacant?

 

[drtweak]

Yea kind of hard to do what you want it to do.

You CAN try this.

Open up Disk Management. Then click on the disk that you want to now show anymore. Right click where it says the Disk X (x is disk number) and click offline. Then when you want it right click and online.

 

[USAFRet]

I have a 4 bay USB 3.0 enclosure.
When I want those drives offline, push the power button on the front.
Drives disconnected.

Power On to reconnect.

Or, there are several out facing hotswap bays that go in your case.

 

[ss202sl]

Get one of thes to mount in a 5 1/4 bay. it includes the hardware for 1 drive
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA00Y42W8767&cm_re=KINGWIN-_-9SIA00Y42W8767-_-Product

Then get one of these for additional drives
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA8HV4S87968&cm_re=KINGWIN-_-9SIA8HV4S87968-_-Product

This will allow you to easily just swap them out

 

[atchard]

I assume you're working with a desktop PC. Would your PC case have an available 5 1/4" external bay that's vacant?

Correct, it's a desktop, but unfortunately do not have another bay. The one bay that the case came with is occupied with an optical drive I decided to throw in there.

Yea kind of hard to do what you want it to do.

You CAN try this.

Open up Disk Management. Then click on the disk that you want to now show anymore. Right click where it says the Disk X (x is disk number) and click offline. Then when you want it right click and online.

I did see similar things suggested elsewhere, but one of the reasons I wanted to have it unmounted if at all possible was to theoretically prevent any miscellaneous malware/ransomware from getting to the drive. Never had any issues with it, but I figured if I was going to be backing my stuff up to this drive, might as well try to make it as secure as I can. Unless taking it offline makes it inaccessible to anything trying to write to it, similar to un-mounting something?

I have a 4 bay USB 3.0 enclosure.
When I want those drives offline, push the power button on the front.
Drives disconnected.

Power On to reconnect.

Or, there are several out facing hotswap bays that go in your case.

Get one of thes to mount in a 5 1/4 bay. it includes the hardware for 1 drive
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA00...

Then get one of these for additional drives
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA8H...

This will allow you to easily just swap them out

Thought about getting an enclosure, but don't really need one at the moment as everything fits inside my case pretty nicely, prefer to keep everything tucked away. Obviously will be a future consideration though, once I need more space.


Thanks for the replies, appreciate the drive bay suggestions, but was looking for something that could handle it internally, through the OS. Sadly, looks like there doesn't seem to be anything like that, unless anybody can confirm how exactly a disk behaves when taken offline, in terms of interaction with the rest of the system?


Also, not sure if the quote button is broken, maybe just in firefox, or if I'm just missing something, but not able to multi-quote people.

 

[ss202sl]

There is this
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/162367304829?rmvSB=true

All you really need to do is control the power easily.

 

[drtweak]

I did see similar things suggested elsewhere, but one of the reasons I wanted to have it unmounted if at all possible was to theoretically prevent any miscellaneous malware/ransomware from getting to the drive. Never had any issues with it, but I figured if I was going to be backing my stuff up to this drive, might as well try to make it as secure as I can. Unless taking it offline makes it inaccessible to anything trying to write to it, similar to un-mounting something?

When a drive is set to Offline it is OFFLINE.

What is even nicer if you can make a batch file, so long as the Disk Number never changes, that you can just put on your desktop to make it offline and online, but i tired and for whatever reason i can't get it to work. but unless it is put back online (Which you MUST do manually) it will not have a drive letter or access to the drive.

 

[atchard]

There is this
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/162367304829?rmvSB=true

All you really need to do is control the power easily.

Thanks for the link, didn't realize those were a thing. Might look into getting one at some point.

When a drive is set to Offline it is OFFLINE.

What is even nicer if you can make a batch file, so long as the Disk Number never changes, that you can just put on your desktop to make it offline and online, but i tired and for whatever reason i can't get it to work. but unless it is put back online (Which you MUST do manually) it will not have a drive letter or access to the drive.

Okay, sounds like it could be what I'm looking for then. I'll see if I can make it work for what I wanted to do.

 

[drtweak]

Sweet! Let us know whats works for you