I want a KVM switch for sata cables. That way I could switch between ssd’s without having the other visible.

Win10 could no longer randomly rewrite the boot loader(s) or wipe my Linux drive.

I’m not a fan of win10, and don’t currently have it installed, but might cave for a few rare games that I can’t get working via proton.

I don't think SATA is hot-pluggable, I think it requires a reboot cycle currently iirc.

There is dockingstations for sata drives

SATA ist hot pluggable. Under Linux even a CPU is hot pluggable theoretically...

The SATA switches are an interesting feature

@burningcandle While I concur that sata is hot swappable, I simply cannot fathom how a CPU is hot swappable.

@junon that's why I wrote theoretically... I've not seen it, but if you have multiple CPU and the hardware supports it, too... ... ...

https://kernel.org/doc/html/...

@burningcandle i know SIGXCPU exists but saying this makes me feel very much the same as "PCI is supposed to be hot-pluggable but cards usually don't work once swapped in and/or don't survive the transition" thing does

@junon @burningcandle one possible use is changing the number of CPUs assigned to a VM while it's running. Afaik VMware ESXi 5 and onwards can do this.

I've also heard of super high end servers being able to hotswap CPUs in multi-cpu configurations but I've never seen it so can't verify this.

@Parzi the question was if SATA is hot swappable... And SATA is! No one mentioned PCI (which is not hot pluggable and I haven't seen it since a long time ago)

@burningcandle SATA is hot-pluggable, yes, and it supposedly got carried to PCI-e, but neither PCI or its middle brother have ever been able to resist killing cards or crashing the OS when i've tried it. I was also referring to how "Linux technically supports hot-plugging CPUs" evoked my memory of the PCI debacle (which happened right here on dR several times!)

@Parzi PCI-e is hot pluggable and Linus tech tips did a video, where they tested the feature without killing the card.

PCI is another topic. Like AGP, i don't think it is -even theoretically- hot swappable.

@burningcandle ah, linus tech tips... i've seen too much shit on his channel to trust anything there anymore. The hot-plug thing is also very hit-or-miss according to various people online who've tried it.

if i had a scrap board i'd record another go at it, to see if i finally get lucky or not on... the 18th try?

Just route some sata and power cables outside the case and plug your drives whenever you need them.
SATA is perfectly hotplugable (don't trust @OmerFlame as he obviously doesn't know shit about SATA). I plug and unplug SATA devices all the time while my machines are running. Works fine on Linux and Windows 7 (the gaming box).
You might have to first enable SATA hotplug in the BIOS though.

@Parzi LTT is more or less accurate when it comes to things, why throw out all of his credibility on a whim?

@Root depending on the hosts hardware, a VM for Win10 could be worth a shot, but I guess it won't go well with some of the latest shit games.

I always hated that windows rewrote everything in a dual boot setup.
Instead, I gave each OS two partitions, one /boot(efi) and one /root.
This way neither one of them knows about the other and only BIOS sees both.
I configured the BIOS default to Linux and if needed, I press F12 on post screen to choose to go to Windows.

Splice the power cables. Cut the ground to both drives and hook em up to a switch.

You might get away by simply disabling some sata devices/ports in bios

well... a "SATA switch" isn't really a thing the way you want it...

If you disconnect a SATA device, it *will* become invisible until you reconnect it (SATA is hot-pluggable tho)...

@olback beware current spikes

@olback is the only person that understood what I wanted.

I don’t want hot swap. I just want something to switch drives (and make the other completely invisible) without having to change cables every time.

Still: looks kinda dangerous. 🤔

@Root looks more dusty than dangerous to me

If you just want Linux and Win 10 to be separate from each other with no worry about overwrite drives and your installing each in a different ssd. All you need to do is unplug your other ssds while you install Win 10. You would still need to boot into one OS or the other but a kvm switch will take care of that, as I'm sure you know.

@Alpha0me Win10 periodically replaces GRUB if present.

@olback
Don't switch the ground. It is called that way for a reason and may be available on the case too. You could get shaky power connections while the drive is switched "off" - and no drive likes that.

Switch +5V and +12V. You can fully remove the +3V as no one uses it anyways.

@Oktokolo not if the ground is isolated to the switch lines. Unless you have a shitty switch, then I doubt it'll be shorting. In which case, how exactly would you get shakey connections?

@junon
You only get shaky connections by switching the ground if all the following is true:
- ground is also present on the PC case
- ground is also present on the drive's case
- The connection between the drive's case and the PC's case is shaky

And even then you only get shaky connections while the switch is off (because only then, the connection between boths cases matters).

But the power rails are never connected to the cases.
So if you switch +12V and +5V, that is guaranteed to work fine with every PSU/PC-case/drive-case combination worldwide.

@Oktokolo are you perhaps trying to explain a ground loop?

@electrineer
I tried to explain the potential unreliability of turning a drive off by switching the ground on the drive's power connection while it still might have a more or less good connection to ground by its case touching the PC case.

You could prolly pull that off on a hot plugging mobo

@killames good luck hot plugging the drive your system runs on. That's not what she was asking.

@electrineer oh all she’s has to do is stop being a repeat ghost and switch to efi