The Windows "Safely Remove Hardware" feature enables unplugging some storage device types from a PC. If you've finished with a drive it will flush the Windows cache, ensuring the drive is up-to-date, and you can remove it without losing data.

The problem with this system is it won't work with all drive types, SATA, eSATA, some fixed drives with USB connections, not even all USB keys. If they're not recognised as removable, "Safely Remove Hardware" won't display or eject them, and the only guaranteed safe way to swap them out is to use Device Manager.

HotSwap! is a portable tool which fixes this by enabling the safe removal of many more drive types.

The program works much like Windows' own "Safely Remove Hardware". Click the HotSwap! icon in your system tray, choose the drive, and within a second or two an alert tells you it's safe to remove.

Right-clicking the icon displays its configuration menu.

A "Device type" menu enables selecting the type of device HotSwap! will list and eject. By default this is "Fixed disk drives" only, but you can also add "Removable disk drives", "DVD/CD-ROM drives" and "Safely removable devices".

Although it's portable, by default HotSwap! sets itself to run when your PC starts. This isn't a major deal - it uses under 2MB of RAM and no CPU time when running in the background - but if it's not what you want, right-click the icon and clear "Autostart".

Version 6.2.0.0
• New feature to support Windows 10.
• New feature to change offline option.
• New feature to support Czech.
• New feature to support Greek.
• Changed the development to Windows 10 SDK/WDK.