Windows 10: Best method for write-blocking *specific USB drives* in Windows 10, while permitting others?

Is there any good, approved, reliable method in Windows 10, to do this?:

- USB drive A is writable

- USB drive B is write-blocked


I used to do this in Windows 7 with a registry key while doing backups. But I haven't yet figured out how to do it in Windows 10.


DETAILS...


I asked this question recently and got a good answer:


https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/best-method-for-usb-write-blocking-on-windows-10/e97e8e3b-15da-4751-bcdc-3c9fac85a506
Best method for USB write blocking on Windows 10? StorageDevicePolicies/WriteProtect no longer works as in Windows 7


However, I'm still not sure I have a good answer to my specific situation.


What I used to do in Windows 7, is have one USB drive write-blocked and another USB drive writable. This allowed me to feel confident I wouldn't mess up anything on the source drive (write blocked), while backing its contents up to the destination drive (not write blocked).


My strategy was to use the registry key StorageDevicePolicies/WriteProtect. I'd turn this off while mounting one drive, then turn it on while mounting the one I wanted blocked. As long as the machine didn't hibernate or otherwise cause the drives to disconnect or reconnect, the one drive would be read-only and the other writable. This was great. But in Windows 10 it seemed like this didn't "take" until reboot (and sometimes even then didn't "take".) But by the time I've rebooted, *all* disks are going to be under the new policy and I didn't want that.


There seem to be at least three major ways of write blocking I've seen in Windows 10:


StorageDevicePolicies/WriteProtect registry key

USBSTOR registry key

Local Group Policy Editor > Removable Disks: Deny read access


Is one of these particularly suited to my specific use-- wanting some devices write blocked and others not?


Specifically: Are any of these intended to become active immediately, but still allow already-connected drives to be in whatever state (blocked or not) they're already in?


Or, is there any better strategy for doing what I'm trying to do-- have some USB drives blocked and others not blocked, while doing backups?


Thank you!

:)

 

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