Is it safe to just unplug an USB spinning drive?

[Bender Blues]

Thats the question.

I know with USB flash drives, its safe because theres no heads to be parked and powered down, thus no Partition Table Corruption rendering all data on that drive unreadable.

Asking if its safe to just unplug because if you right click the ext HD, theres no option to "eject" or anything else.

 

TY and Merry Christmas, have a good bender.

 

[WickedStarfish]

I dont think i have ever ejected my HDD's

Only time I ever see that crossing my mind is when it's someone else's HDD 

[DoctorNick]

Yes it safe. Also it's safe to uninstall malwarebytes

[Dujith]

There should be an option to eject. If not then its not handled like an USB drive and part of the system and it will not have that option.

While with USB flashdrives the chances are small that pulling it out will cause issues. An USB hdd is another story.

 

In the disk management, does it show up as removable or standard?

[Metallus97]

In 99,9% of the cases youre fine without ejecting.

Lok at the task bar. There should also be an option to eject the drive. Most HDDs dont spin down anyway when you eject em

[Metallus97]

Just now, DoctorNick said:

Yes it safe. Also it's safe to uninstall malwarebytes

Yes! MWB is overrated crap

 

[Bender Blues]

Just now, WickedStarfish said:

I dont think i have ever ejected my HDD's

Only time I ever see that crossing my mind is when it's someone else's HDD 

As you can see from the screenshot, you cant eject.

And it does seem unsafe to just unplug while the heads and platers are active.

[Bender Blues]

Just now, Metallus97 said:

Yes! MWB is overrated crap

 

Well, coming from a nationally convicted hacker many years ago, you'd be wrong.

MWB from years ago maybe, but it does what needs to get done and doesn't have nearly any footprint.

 

 

[Bender Blues]

3 minutes ago, Dujith said:

There should be an option to eject. If not then its not handled like an USB drive and part of the system and it will not have that option.

While with USB flashdrives the chances are small that pulling it out will cause issues. An USB hdd is another story.

 

In the disk management, does it show up as removable or standard?

As you can see from the screenshot, there isn't one.

I'll look now in management. TY. 

 

[Bender Blues]

18 minutes ago, Dujith said:

There should be an option to eject. If not then its not handled like an USB drive and part of the system and it will not have that option.

While with USB flashdrives the chances are small that pulling it out will cause issues. An USB hdd is another story.

 

In the disk management, does it show up as removable or standard?

Think its standard.

Its in the same drop down tree with the primary HD.

[Geoff35674567]

I reckon unplug it but dont move it too much while its still spinning

[Bender Blues]

OK there it is. Thank You @Metallus97 for the task bar tip.

And yes, just yanking the cord with a HD or external is no bueno.

If someone says its safe, just remember then, you go ahead and just pull the power molex on their primary HD and see if thats ok, because its not.

In closing, yes, theres a nationally convicted hacker here over looking the room with great delight. 

Cheers and Merry Christmas.

 

 

[GenericFanboy]

When it comes to my own stuff; i just plug it out and dont think about it. Havent had problems at all so far. Seems fine to me, But this is your best bet to be safe yeah

11 minutes ago, Bender Blues said:

OK there it is. Thank You @Metallus97 for the task bar tip.

And yes, just yanking the cord with a HD or external is no bueno.

If someone says its safe, just remember then, you go ahead and just pull the power molex on their primary HD and see if thats ok, because its not.

In closing, yes, theres a nationally convicted hacker here over looking the room with great delight. 

Cheers and Merry Christmas.

 

 

 

[Kilrah]

1 hour ago, Bender Blues said:

If someone says its safe, just remember then, you go ahead and just pull the power molex on their primary HD and see if thats ok, because its not.

And this means nothing at all since they're not handled the same. 

Windows by default disables write cache on external drives. That means that the copy window, the save window etc never disappear until everything is effectively written and no unsafe operation is happening anymore. 

 

 

[Metallus97]

4 hours ago, Kilrah said:

And this means nothing at all since they're not handled the same. 

Windows by default disables write cache on external drives. That means that the copy window, the save window etc never disappear until everything is effectively written and no unsafe operation is happening anymore. 

 

 

And that’s why simply unplugging them is pretty much fine

[elektronikfreak]

I will recommend to double-click on the Safely Remove Hardware Icon on the taskbar to view a list of available USB hard drives to eject. Locate and highlight the external hard drive in the list of available devices. Click on the Stop button to safely remove the drive from the Operating System.