Microsoft will change the default way that they handle USB data devices

[Skanky Sylveon]

UPDATE:  Soooo, Windows already defaults to "Quick removal" when it comes to removable USB drives.  So the article is wrong, and I'm dumb for not knowing that.  Sorry.

 

https://www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/microsoft-changes-how-windows-10-disconnects-usb-storage-devices/

Quote

Until now, the default policy in all previous Windows versions when disconnecting a USB storage device was the "Better performance" setting.

 

Starting with Windows 10 v1809, this will become "Quick removal."

This has been a setting that I've known about for a while, but let's have the article explain it for us.

Quote

"Better performance" means that Windows manages data transfers and storage operations in a manner that improves performance. This includes caching data while it's being transferred, opened, or in preparation for certain operations.

 

This constant readiness on Windows' part meant that any user who wanted to disconnect a USB or Thunderbolt-connected storage device had to go through the "Safely Hardware Removal" process, which meant triggering a manual Eject.

 

All Windows users know the procedure.

 

But starting with Windows 10 v1809, the default state for all USB and Thunderbolt storage devices will become "Quick removal," which is a state where external storage devices can be disconnected without following the "Safely Hardware Removal" process.

First off, you'll probably still get corrupted data if you remove the USB device when it's in the middle of a write, but I largely believe that this is a good change (as long as Microsoft doesn't mess it up that is).

 

The article tells you how to switch individual drives back to performance mode, which is reccomended for anyone who is responsible enough to click "safely remove hardware", or if you have an external USB hard drive hooked up to your PC long term, but the vast majority of people just pull their drives from their computer without clicking the safely remove hardware button, and while the chance is real small, it's still possible to corrupt data if your computer was caching your data, as it wasn't quite on your drive yet.  This happens most often with large file transfers on a slower drive, but if you pull it at the right time (or wrong time in this case) it can happen with pretty much all drives that are set to "better performance".

 

Whether this will affect your PC depends on sevral factors, how fast your drive is, how fast your connection speed is, how powerful your CPU is, etc.  But performance shouldn't be affected too much, although prolonged writes on a slow drive while doing something intensive (like video rendering) could cause performance to drop slightly, especially if you're using an older CPU.

 

Again, I think that this is largely a good change, but the people on these fourms are a bit more tech savvy than your average consumer, so I can see this change irritating some here.

[Enderman]

You do realize that caching the file transfer does literally nothing to speed up the time it takes to get the file onto the drive, right...................

[Bitter]

I uh just wait till it stops blinking and then unplug it, nary a problem.

[GoodBytes]

I actually had to check the date of the article to see if this was posted from April Fool's Day. Surprisingly, it is not.

 

This feature was introduced back in Vista, and yes it was the default for USB flash drives. The worst part is that the article noted that this feature was a coming up one in the May 2019 Update, only to post an update that it is the current version of Windows 10, despite comments noting that it was always there even one saying that it is in Windows 7.

[Stefan Payne]

Hm?? 

They changed the File thingy to "Performance" on external Drives??
IIRC the Default always was "quick Removal"...

 

[cj09beira]

almost never have i done the safety removal thing, never had any corruption

[Skanky Sylveon]

21 minutes ago, Enderman said:

You do realize that caching the file transfer does literally nothing to speed up the time it takes to get the file onto the drive, right...................

From my understanding write commands are sent to system RAM and get sent to the external storage drive when the PC isn't busy doing something else, correct?

 

Wait, I said drive instead of PC, didn't I?  Oops, I'll correct it so it's less confusing. 

13 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

The worst part is that the article noted that this feature was a coming up one in the May 2019 Update, only to post an update that it is the current version of Windows 10, despite comments noting that it was always there even one saying that it is in Windows 7.

I've known about it for a few years.  Is Microsoft changing the default setting for removable devices to "quick removal" correct though?

[Windows7ge]

I am guilty of never safely removing my thumb drives and I've been doing this for over 10 years across XP, 7, & 10.

 

Still have yet to corrupt data as a result of this.

[GoodBytes]

28 minutes ago, Skanky Sylveon said:

I've known about it for a few years.  Is Microsoft changing the default setting for removable devices to "quick removal" correct though?

The default has always been "quick removal" for USB drives.

 

[Enderman]

31 minutes ago, Skanky Sylveon said:

From my understanding write commands are sent to system RAM and get sent to the external storage drive when the PC isn't busy doing something else, correct?

I have no idea what you're talking about with write commands or the "PC being busy".

Caching works by temporarily storing the data somewhere else while it slowly buffers to the USB in the background.

Either way it takes the same amount of time for the data to get onto the USB.

[RejZoR]

NTFS really doesn't like caching and interruption of transfers. Hell, many USB drives keep bitching even if you unplug them after writes were already finished and LED isn't blinking anymore. I don't think this is a good idea...

[kingmustard]

Eugh, the knobs that call them "thumb drives".

[Skanky Sylveon]

29 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

The default has always been "quick removal" for USB drives.

Alright, then this thread was pointless.  Sorry about that.

26 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Caching works by temporarily storing the data somewhere else while it slowly buffers to the USB in the background.

Either way it takes the same amount of time for the data to get onto the USB.

That's what I said.

"write commands are sent to system RAM and get sent to the external storage drive."

28 minutes ago, Enderman said:

I have no idea what you're talking about with write commands or the "PC being busy".

Let me re phrase that.  Instead of photoshop saving directly to the flash drive, it will be sent to system RAM and be stored until Windows decides that it's a good time to send it to the drive.  If multiple things are being saved to the drive in a short amount of time, the operating system may store the saved data for a prolonged period, then send it all at once.

 

This prevents the program from spending a large amount of time saving to a slower drive, thus making the system more responsive when it comes to saving data, especially if it's multiple saves during a short amount of time.

34 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Either way it takes the same amount of time for the data to get onto the USB.

I never stated that transfer speeds themselves would be faster, I made a few typos and worded it in a way that someone could think that though, so I corrected it.

[Enderman]

9 minutes ago, Skanky Sylveon said:

Alright, then this thread was pointless.  Sorry about that.

That's what I said.

"write commands are sent to system RAM and get sent to the external storage drive."

Let me re phrase that.  Instead of photoshop saving directly to the flash drive, it will be sent to system RAM and be stored until Windows decides that it's a good time to send it to the drive.  If multiple things are being saved to the drive in a short amount of time, the operating system may store the saved data for a prolonged period, then send it all at once.

 

This prevents the program from spending a large amount of time saving to a slower drive, thus making the system more responsive when it comes to saving data, especially if it's multiple saves during a short amount of time.

I never stated that transfer speeds themselves would be faster, I made a few typos and worded it in a way that someone could think that though, so I corrected it.

1) there are no 'write commands' going to ram, the data to be written is going to ram.

 

2) it is not possible to 'send it all at once', data is only transferred through a single serial stream.

 

3) 'the program' is windows explorer and no it does not make the system more responsive if it is or isn't saving data to a flash drive. Saving data is literally one of the easiest processes for a computer to do. Caching happens because of the time it takes for a slow USB memory device to write data, not because of any processing power or responsiveness.

[Skanky Sylveon]

18 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Caching happens because of the time it takes for a slow USB memory device to write data, not because of any processing power or responsiveness.

"This prevents the program from spending a large amount of time saving to a slower drive"

 

To be frank, I have better things to do then arguing with someone who is acting like Sheldon from the big bang theory.  Have a nice day.

 

[MrFixitBlankFace]

Wait..for the USB to stop flashing.

Pull it.

 

 

What could go wrong?

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, Enderman said:

1) there are no 'write commands' going to ram, the data to be written is going to ram.

 

2) it is not possible to 'send it all at once', data is only transferred through a single serial stream.

 

3) 'the program' is windows explorer and no it does not make the system more responsive if it is or isn't saving data to a flash drive. Saving data is literally one of the easiest processes for a computer to do. Caching happens because of the time it takes for a slow USB memory device to write data, not because of any processing power or responsiveness.

I think you are being unfairly specific.  The OP isn't having the best day with this thread, but it's pretty easy to see what he means and why the confusion.

[mr moose]

36 minutes ago, MrFixitBlankFace said:

Wait..for the USB to stop flashing.

Pull it.

 

 

What could go wrong?

The rhythm method for safe data transfer?  

[TopHatProductions115]

I guess I'll be going back into my settings pretty soon, to change this back. I'd prefer High Performance over Quick Removal any day, seeing that I tend to use the Safe Removal method anyhow...

 

@mr moose @Skanky Sylveon Can we get an ELI5 guide on how most modern OS's handle storage access requests? Like from the time an application requests access, to the time the data is modified? I think that would be a pretty interesting topic to go into...  

[williamcll]

What Microsoft should do is to tell the user what processes are using the drive during the eject USB window. 

[Dabombinable]

I actually go out of my way to disable write caching on all of my HDD and SSD. Regardless of motherboard I saw a decrease in boot times, and Explorer was actually more responsive. I'm also not having Windows itself rot any where near as badly as it used to.

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, TopHatProductions115 said:

I guess I'll be going back into my settings pretty soon, to change this back. I'd prefer High Performance over Quick Removal any day, seeing that I tend to use the Safe Removal method anyhow...

 

@mr moose @Skanky Sylveon Can we get an ELI5 guide on how most modern OS's handle storage access requests? Like from the time an application requests access, to the time the data is modified? I think that would be a pretty interesting topic to go into...  

I don't know all the specifics of the process windows uses to determine when to write and when to wait.  All I know is it transfers the data to ram first and does the writing to the drive from there, this means that as far as the program is concerned you have saved the data and it can get on with doing something else rather than waiting for a slow/busy drive. The time and resource is usually of little consequence these days as drives are significantly faster than they used to be and most of the time the data being written is relatively small (a picture or word document).  

 

[leadeater]

24 minutes ago, TopHatProductions115 said:

@mr moose @Skanky Sylveon Can we get an ELI5 guide on how most modern OS's handle storage access requests? Like from the time an application requests access, to the time the data is modified? I think that would be a pretty interesting topic to go into...  

Generally speaking operating systems have a system call/API for reading and writing data to storage devices, these can support caching for both reads and writes. For writes sometimes it's called delayed write, all this really means is that the data is acknowledged as written to the device when it's reached system memory. Writes always go through system memory but the difference is when you acknowledge the write operation as completed, when it's in system memory or actually written to the storage device which is why it's sometimes called delayed write as there is a delay between the acknowledgement and the data actually being written.

 

Typical terminology you'll hear is delayed write, write caching, write-back cache, async I/O etc but they all mean the same thing which is the data is acknowledged as written to storage before it has actually been done. Where this helps is for applications that wait for I/O to complete before doing other tasks or allowing interaction with the UI, write caching is used to improve user experience.

[williamcll]

14 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

I actually go out of my way to disable write caching on all of my HDD and SSD. Regardless of motherboard I saw a decrease in boot times, and Explorer was actually more responsive. I'm also not having Windows itself rot any where near as badly as it used to.

By that do you mean keep "Enable write Caching on the device" on and check "Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device"? or uncheck everything?

[Dabombinable]

16 minutes ago, williamcll said:

By that do you mean keep "Enable write Caching on the device" on and check "Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device"? or uncheck everything?

I completely disabled write caching, aka "optimize for quick removal" is enabled. It started as an effort to find out why I was having Windows (and only Windows) corrupting almost immediately after install on my 240GB SSD. Turns out that its just another bad SSD from OCZ and there were no negatives to actually having write caching off.