Any easy way to disable/switch between hard drives?

[Lee James]

Is there an easy way to quickly disable/switch hard drives without physically disconnecting them?

It's just that I've got a lot of drives I don't use as much - small older drives, backups, archived stuff etc. I don't need these hooked up all the time, nor would there be enough cables to do that anyway. Plus I've also been thinking about running two different operating systems from the same machine, so I'd need some way to switch before booting.

Surprised there doesn't seem to be any switcher cables out there. How do most people deal with multiple hard drives? Is it only me who keeps all his older drives for extra space/backups?

 

[Snapshot]

Probably not just you but I sweep out the old tiddlers and only keep the newer, larger drives. My backups are organised so I have no need of random ones on old small drives.

When I do need to attach an external HDD I use a docking station such as https://www.overclockers.co.uk/icyb...usb-3.2-gen-1-type-a-connector-hd-14b-bt.html. For SSDs I use a USB-to-SATA cable.

 

[hornetstinger]

What type of drive SATA or nvme?

 

[jokerguv]

I do this by enabling/disabling required sata drives in the bios (Asus B650E-F). Don't think NVME drives can be controlled this way (outside of server/workstation class boards).

But for sata drives it's a breeze. Enter bios, enable Sata drive 1 (Windows), disable sata drive 2 (Linux Mint) and vice versa. Neither systems can see the disabled drive so it's a robust enough mechanism.