do you "eject" USB flash drives before you unplug them?

[JoeH]

I have helped too many persons who have lost data to improper removal of drives to just pull one without dismounting/ejecting a drive properly myself. I guess that comes from seeing what "that never happens to me when I do that" translates to when done over several hundred computers by many students, faculty and staff.

[DaviDC.]

I have XP configured so that ejecting a USB flash drive is unnecessary.
Leopard doesn't give that option.
Does that make XP a better OS?

[Doc]

DaviDC. wrote:
I have XP configured so that ejecting a USB flash drive is unnecessary.
Leopard doesn't give that option.
Does that make XP a better OS?

No. Your PC simply has no USB ports.

[JoeH]

Doc wrote:
[quote=DaviDC.]
I have XP configured so that ejecting a USB flash drive is unnecessary.
Leopard doesn't give that option.
Does that make XP a better OS?

No. Your PC simply has no USB ports.
Or it does and delayed write to removable drives has been turned off in his XP install. Just makes it less likely to cause problems if you just pull a USB flash drive, does not completely eliminate the problem. XP does not always obey that setting.

[Doc]

JoeH wrote:
[quote=Doc]
[quote=DaviDC.]
I have XP configured so that ejecting a USB flash drive is unnecessary.
Leopard doesn't give that option.
Does that make XP a better OS?

No. Your PC simply has no USB ports.
Or it does and delayed write to removable drives has been turned off in his XP install. Just makes it less likely to cause problems...
Possibly, but the idiot who tries a delayed write and then yanks his thumb drive offline is likely to find that a few of his files haven't made it onto the drive from the cache yet.

More likely, he thinks the "quick removal" setting protects his data. Sadly, while that might reduce incidents of corrupt files on the drive, it doesn't do much for files that are open/in-use and removing without ejecting can still cause directory damage.

[datbeme]

Well, I've always ejected properly, but somehow I've gotten in the habit of just unplugging my iPod Touch as long as isn't syncing. Maybe because the message window in iTunes reads"iPod sync is complete. OK to disconnect." Should I still be ejecting?

[Doc]

datbeme wrote:
Well, I've always ejected properly, but somehow I've gotten in the habit of just unplugging my iPod Touch as long as isn't syncing. Maybe because the message window in iTunes reads"iPod sync is complete. OK to disconnect." Should I still be ejecting?

If the iPod screen says "Okay to disconnect" then it's okay to disconnect it.

If you've got it set to auto-sync and not to mount as a data disk then it should unmount when syncing is complete.

If you sync manually or have it mount as a data disk then you will have to eject/unmount it.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1853

[JoeH]

Doc wrote:
Possibly, but the idiot who tries a delayed write and then yanks his thumb drive offline is likely to find that a few of his files haven't made it onto the drive from the cache yet.

More likely, he thinks the "quick removal" setting protects his data. Sadly, while that might reduce incidents of corrupt files on the drive, it doesn't do much for files that are open/in-use and removing without ejecting can still cause directory damage.

Like I said, reduces, does not eliminate the problem. Since the OS sometimes ignores the setting anyways, still leaves open the possibility a delayed write operation will be used instead of immediate.

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space-time wrote:
I noticed that the majority of my colleagues just unplug the drive...is the "eject" or "unmount" necessary or not?

Hmm...tough one. I wonder what would happen if the system was actively writing to the flash drive volume when it was unplugged...hmm...

Your colleagues are clueless. You're smart.

of course, we assume there is no read/write operation going on at the moment.

Bad assumption.

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thermarest wrote:
Sometimes if I'm lazy and I know there is no read/write going on I'll just pull it out.

And how would you know that?