(Windows tries to recognize flash drives so it doesn't write-cache on them, but sometimes it makes mistakes.) Usually this won't happen, but on the off chance it does, eject first.
When you remove a flash drive without warning the computer first, it might not have finished writing to the drive. Ejecting the disk is a way of telling the computer that it's time to do the writing, regardless of whether the computer deems it efficient. Translation: For efficiency's sake, they don't actually write the files you're moving to the disk until there are multiple files to move. Macintosh and Linux, and sometimes Windows, boost performance by write-caching when copying files to external disks. Or, a device may be write-caching, another reason you shouldn't remove hard drives or flash media without warning them. Even if a drive isn't USB-powered, it's still spinning, and it may be using files in the background. They need to be warned that soon you'll take away their power-and therefore their ability to spin. But are you actually doing any harm? The answer is mostly yes, though it depends on the type of disk.Ībsolutely, definitely do not remove spinning hard drives without ejecting them first. If you have a Mac, then your machine probably nags you about it. We've all yanked external disks out of computers in a hurry, skipping the step of properly ejecting them.
