SAFELY REMOVE HARDWARE/USB FLASH DRIVES

[aaronep]

sometimes in the past I have removed usb flash drive from the xp with
svc pak 2 computer without first hitting the SAFELY REMOVE HARDWARE
icon. there were no problems when I did this.

How important is it to use this protocol? Would not using it cause
permanent damage to the flash drive? Is it necessary to use with
some flash drives and not with others.?

best, Aaron

 

[Jeff Barnett]

sometimes in the past I have removed usb flash drive from the xp with
svc pak 2 computer without first hitting the SAFELY REMOVE HARDWARE
icon. there were no problems when I did this.

How important is it to use this protocol? Would not using it cause
permanent damage to the flash drive? Is it necessary to use with
some flash drives and not with others.?

best, Aaron

I think the analysis goes like this: If you don't use the
safely-remove-hardware protocol, there is a 1/10 (or 1/100 or 1/1000,
etc. depending on various factors) chance that you will do damage. It's
like rushing to get across an intersection when the light turns yellow.
It is easy to get a false sense of confidence that it is a safe maneuver
because it usually is. It's best to play it safe with your disk. What
can happen is that the disk might be in an inconsistent state with some
information that should logically be on disk still in the PC's buffers.
There should be no electrical harm as I understand the USB protocol but
there can be data damage. The damage is most severe when the
inconsistent data is part of a directory structure.

-- Jeff Barnett

 

[Ed Covney]

If the flash is formatted FAT or FAT32 - no danger,
write-behind cache is disabled. The entire purpose
of "Safely remove.." is to flush cache. External USB
hard drives are normally NTFS and employ disk
caching. That's when it's important to "Safely Remove."

Ed

 

[M.I.5¾]

If the flash is formatted FAT or FAT32 - no danger,
write-behind cache is disabled. The entire purpose
of "Safely remove.." is to flush cache. External USB
hard drives are normally NTFS and employ disk
caching. That's when it's important to "Safely Remove."

Not necessarily, though USB FLASH drives should be be disabled by default
(regardless of the format). However individual systems may vary (especially
if the manufacturer has customised the operating system), so it's a good
idea to check.

 

[M.I.5¾]

Not necessarily, though USB FLASH drives should be be disabled by default
(regardless of the format). However individual systems may vary
(especially if the manufacturer has customised the operating system), so
it's a good idea to check.

I meant to add that I have one PC where setting drives for 'Optimise for
quick removal' disables the Safely Remove Hardware tool, but not the actual
write back cacheing, creating a potential hazard.