Safely remove USB?

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
lQlSx.jpg

I agree, but I do it anyway.
 

madmat

Soup Nazi
I've never done it. Never had a problem either. As long as nothing is being written to the device it's supposed to be 100% safe to remove.
 

RainMotorsports

Partition Master
I've never done it. Never had a problem either. As long as nothing is being written to the device it's supposed to be 100% safe to remove.

If write caching is enabled in windows and I believe at least one version it was default. That makes it 0% safe to remove!

Screenshot:
image114.png


Took me a minute to find a shot. It used to be a super neato idea on USB 1 as its hard to operate on and navigate a drive while its super busy. Not as much anymore.

I have observed an hour go by back in the day pulling a drive and ending up with corrupted or not even updated at all files. Not so much these days still some minor risks. As long as caching is disabled should be good to go most of the time you know its not writing.
 
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Tharic-Nar

Senior Editor
Staff member
Moderator
I very rarely use 'safely remove', mainly because it laughs in my face and says the device is busy... even when it's not! So I just wait for lights to stop blinking and yank it. The only time I've had corrupted data was due to a bad enclosure, not because I pulled the drive too soon.
 

madmat

Soup Nazi
If write caching is enabled in windows and I believe at least one version it was default. That makes it 0% safe to remove!

Screenshot:
image114.png


Took me a minute to find a shot. It used to be a super neato idea on USB 1 as its hard to operate on and navigate a drive while its super busy. Not as much anymore.

I have observed an hour go by back in the day pulling a drive and ending up with corrupted or not even updated at all files. Not so much these days still some minor risks. As long as caching is disabled should be good to go most of the time you know its not writing.

I've been doing USB drives for the last 6 or 7 years (once they got affordable) and I've not had one problem in all that time. Not even with USB HDD enclosures.

Guess I'm just livin' right. Oh, BTW... your screenshot isn't showing up.
 

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
I safely remove every single time, because I've lost data in the past because I didn't. But if it nags me about it being in use, I usually just unplug it anyway. Nobody got time for dat.
 

DarkStarr

Tech Monkey
If write caching is enabled in windows and I believe at least one version it was default. That makes it 0% safe to remove!

Screenshot:
image114.png


Took me a minute to find a shot. It used to be a super neato idea on USB 1 as its hard to operate on and navigate a drive while its super busy. Not as much anymore.

I have observed an hour go by back in the day pulling a drive and ending up with corrupted or not even updated at all files. Not so much these days still some minor risks. As long as caching is disabled should be good to go most of the time you know its not writing.

Write caching is never enabled on external drives by default any longer.

I safely remove every single time, because I've lost data in the past because I didn't. But if it nags me about it being in use, I usually just unplug it anyway. Nobody got time for dat.

Never used it nor do I plan too. I tried to once cuz webOS throws a bitch fit if you don't, PC said safe to remove, webOS STILL threw a bitch fit. Big reason I use android almost exclusively on my Touchpad. No reason for WebOS now that the camera works though lol

On flash drives I just count to 10 after the data transfer is done and rip it out. Funny thing is though, I did that on a Mac once without ejecting and it did a Kernel Panic rofl
 
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Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
Well, it offers the ability to safely remove for a reason. A couple of weeks ago, I copied files off of the benchmarking PC to bring them to my main PC, and lo and behold, they simply weren't on the drive. I had to boot that machine back up and copy them over and then safely removed just to be certain.

I think it's a rare case when something like that happens, but I don't like taking chances.
 

Optix

Basket Chassis
Staff member
I've frizzle fried one drive by not "ejecting" it. Ever since I've been a safely remove kinda guy.
 

Kougar

Techgage Staff
Staff member
I had problems with Windows XP, and plenty of my classmates also had issues with XP and their flashdrives although who is to really say whether XP, the students, or the choice of flash drive was to blame. :D

All I know is that I've had XP machines give me trouble with many flash drives if I didn't eject them. But since Vista I've never had trouble and so I've never bothered to manually eject them since. I check for the flashing LED light and pull when nothing's being read or written to the drive.

I've frizzle fried one drive by not "ejecting" it. Ever since I've been a safely remove kinda guy.

Strange, because clicking the safely eject button doesn't change the power state to the USB port. Those ports are always live. :p
 
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