Any way to reliably schedule connect/disconnect of USB drives...?

[Koldov]

A small local school is using a pair of USB drives for backups and these are swapped everyday.

 

They are unable to look at factoring in remote/cloud storage within their budget.

 

I am concerned that in effect these USB drives are permanently online (and would be infected/encrypted should the worst happen) so I'm looking for a way to schedule the connection and disconnection if possible

 

Hopefully there is a way to connect/mount the drive, say 30 mins before the backup runs and then disconnect/unmount after?

[ShellfishClive]

I think the main issue is getting the USB stick to connect again without plugging it in and out. You can eject it however, you can't really "connect" without doing this as far as I am aware.

 

A desktop NAS really isn't that expensive and it's much more reliable.

[Koldov]

Well, one usb drive is taken off-site whilst the other is connected so that if the worst happens they are only a day behind.

 

It's a very small school so taking into account the possibility of a fire, I'm not sure any sort of local SAN/NAS will satisfy all the requirements...

 

If I can get it to disconnect after the Back-ups run and ensure someone then connects the other one just before they leave for the day, I guess that cuts out 2/3 of the possible time it's normally left connected?

 

If.... Big IF...

[bald_pig]

Google Drive is free for education...

[jthompson]

Even just a vanilla Google account set up for the task and 'Backup & Sync' installed and pointed at the relevent local folder would do it, I'd have thought. Unless the default storage quota on a regular Google account is insufficient.

[Arthur]

I'm looking for a way to schedule the connection and disconnection if possible

It is possible with devcon.exe (which is included with the Windows Driver Kit).

 

Eject

devcon disable *[color="#FF0000"]VID_0781[/color]*

 

Reconnect

devcon enable *[color="#FF0000"]VID_0781[/color]*

 

To find the VID of your USB drive you can look at the hardware ID in Device Manager or use ListUsbDrives.

Edited June 24, 2019 by Arthur

[Koldov]

It is possible with devcon.exe

 

For the most part this works very well.

 

Thanks @Arthur!