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Windows "safely remove device" thingie

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gjehle:
woah,
hibernation _could_ kill it, depending on how windows handles it.
if it's smart, it flushes the buffers, if not it just writes a ram-image to your harddrive (including the i/o buffers) and then shuts down
as already mentioned before, better play it safe ;)

Armando:
if it's smart, it flushes the buffers [...] better play it safe ;)
-gjehle (April 14, 2007, 04:04 PM)
--- End quote ---

Yup. Better play it safe.
AND I don't know *any other way to unplug my external device* in these cases... (Other than -- of course -- to actually wait for windows' capricious permission to finally allow me to unplug my HDs !)  :( 
You'd think MS would've solved these issues after all these years. Wonder if Vista solves it. Anybody ?


(edit : added the vista question)

ianmcc:
Hi all,

This is my first post as I feel I should add my experiences to this discussion.

I have used all manner of USB drives over the last 3 years or so. I used a 20Gb Firefly USB drive for over 2 years, never using the "safely remove device" option.  I now use a laptop 160GB drive in a USB Caddy, and transport it between my work PC and Home PC every single day, again never using the "safely remove device" option.  I also us a USB Key, and Ipod and a Zune MP3 player.  I just cannot be bothered to use the "safely remove device" option and always just unplug the device.  For some reason I use the option when using the Ipod, although I am not really sure why!

Maybe I am just being lucky, but having worked in this manner for over 3 years, I am still to be covinced that the "safely remove device" option is really necessary.

Obviously you will all come to your own conclusion, but I just thought I would add my opinion to the discussion.

f0dder:
Welcome aboard, ianmcc!

Maybe I am just being lucky, but having worked in this manner for over 3 years, I am still to be covinced that the "safely remove device" option is really necessary.

--- End quote ---
Yeah, you've been lucky :)

Your devices are probably set to "optimize for quick removal" (I think this is the default - at least I've usually had to set mine to "optimize for performance"). Also, if you unplug your device after there hasn't been disk access "for a bit", you're usually safe.

I still recommend using the safely remove hardware icon, though. One day you'll be unplugging a device at the wrong time, and that's not going to be nice. But okay, NTFS is pretty robust, so you'll most likely only lose the last few files you've been writing to, and filesystem metadata corruption can probably be repaired.

Sucks if the file destroyed is, say, the track database on an iPod.

mrainey:
I've been lucky too, I guess.  I don't pay attention to the "thingy" at all.  What I do is watch the external device for apparent cessation of activity, count to ten, then unplug.  I've never had a problem.

Hibernation and system restore are both disabled, if that matters.

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