Ejecting USB sticks and Camera Cards

[Stevekir]

For safety's sake, should these always be Ejected before removal?

When I was on a Mac, Apple advised this should be done every time (to avoid corruption or damage to the directory, etc.)

They also advided Ejecting external USB hard drives (the rotational ones), which I believe is not necessary on Windows - they are "hot swappable".

 

[Bif]

To be honest ( beit right or wrong ) as long as you are done either writing to or copying from the card or USB stick and no lights are flashing I just pull mine out to no ill effect with doing so for many years.

 

[clifford_cooley]

I'm with Bif. As long as all processes appear to be finished, I assume they are finished. I rarely ever eject media, unless immediately after a write process has finished.

 

[Digerati]

and no lights are flashing

That's the key thing. But I suspect if you look at the properties, the Policy will already be set for "Quick removal" because that is the default. Quick removal disables write caching meaning writes are performed immediately. This allows you to "disconnect the device safely without using the Safely Remove Hardware notification icon."

 

[Tim Locke]

I always eject if I have written to the stick/card but if I have just inserted it to see what is there I don't bother.

 

[Norton]

I always have used the eject method with XP, 7, and Win 10. Occasionally, after creating an image to an external USB, Win 10 won't let me eject the media. It says something like, "a program is still using the media" even though the imaging has completed and I've closed the backup program. I think this is were you may run into corrupting the data by just pulling the USB. I've never found out what causes the glitch. To get around the problem, I will shut the PC down and remove the external drive.

 

[Saltgrass]

I normally do a safe eject for flash drives, just in case. I do agree they probably don't need it if not currently reading or writing.

I do not, however, ever do a safe eject on an SSD card.