Poll of the Day > Just pull the flashdrive out? Or do the "Eject removable disk" steps?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Random tech question. Figured this would be the perfect place to ask.

So, I don't know how often any of you even use flashdrives anymore....but they used to be pretty cool. Little plastic thingies that could carry gigs of space so you could take pictures off your computer and put them on another device, etc. Or just have backups for important files.

Mini external hardrives.

Lately, I've been using them to backup some of my art projects....because I get super paranoid about my desktop computer just crashing some day....and losing all my progress. So I always back them up on a 2gig flashdrive just in case.

Anyway.....I didnt realize it until my brother pointed it out to me a very very long time ago....but it's (apparently?) not a good idea to just pull it out of the USB slot when you are done using it.

You are supposed to right-click on it....and properly eject the flashdrive from your computer...and wait for the prompt that tells you "You can now safely remove your hardware" (or something to that effect....depending on what kind of computer you have, etc).

I guess this helps prevent the files you transfered from being corrupted or something?

Is it bullshit? Or is this really a thing?

I mean....I could understand not wanting to pull it out if the files are literally in the process of being written onto the flashdrive.....because that would definitely mess it up.

But if the files are competely done being downloaded or uploaded to/from the flashdrive......why can't you just pull it out?

Why the steps to properly eject the device?

i think modern OSes all optimize for quick removal by default now? if not then pulling it out right after you copy something over without doing the 'safely eject' thing might cause data loss, since the write cache might not get flushed

if it's an external I disconnect it.
just a flash drive? will be fine as long as nothing is being saved to it when you remove it

I haven't used a Windows based operating system in like 5 years. I just take out my flash drives. It literally doesn't matter.

It's pretty much a relic from the days a computer would go into full panic mode if you tried to add/remove peripheries while it was still running.

I go through the proper steps. I'm really afraid of losing my important files. I think it's partly from losing files several times in the past. Before flash drives, I used floppy disks to be able to work on my papers at home and school. I remember quite a few floppy disks failing on me, making me lose files. I still use flash drives to work on my files on multiple computers. I'm not comfortable storing my files online.

All the "Eject removable disk" process does is check to make sure that the drive isn't being written to, then un-mounts it so that it can't be written to anymore. If you haven't touched the drive in a while and it isn't flashing, you are good to just pull it.

Still, not a bad idea to do it through software since you never know what background processes are doing.

Pull out.

Depends on the PC.

On my windows XP computer, I definitely use the eject steps in the taskbar.

I usually try to eject it correctly, just in case. But sometimes it says that the drive is still in use and I'm like, "No it isn't! What the hell is using it?" and try again and it says no again so I just yank it out anyway. This happens a lot at work, I think it's the crappy antivirus we use.

never use the raw pull out method

Depends
phone -> I eject (gets pissed if I do not)
windows -> just remove
linux -> unmount then remove

YOlNK