Do you stop your usb key before disconnecting it?

Crappopotamus

Golden Member
Oct 1, 2002
1,920
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ya know the whole 'safely remove hardware' dealy? it seems like EVERYONE does that, and they bitch me out if i dont. i dont see wht the big deal is. as long as the lights not flashing and its not active, it should be all good shouldnt it?

im so lazy. please assure me that this is a safe practise so i can continue this lazyness. :p
 

Arcanedeath

Platinum Member
Jan 29, 2000
2,822
1
76
The only thing I do this for is Flash based memory devices and External Hard drives because windows may be lazy writing to the drive / device and I'd want all the buffers clear before removing it, but for things like printers, keyboards, mice, ect... I never hit that and if the storage device hasn't been in use for awhile I normaly don't bother either.
 

apoppin

Lifer
Mar 9, 2000
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alienbabeltech.com
Depends . . . .

i'm using win2k and IF the 'safely remove hardware' dealy icon is showing, i'll stop it . . . . if it's not showing, i just yank it out. . . . ;)

. . . err, pull gently. :)
:roll:

 

JBT

Lifer
Nov 28, 2001
12,094
1
81
no I don't turn mine off. I go into device manager and tell it to set it's self for easy removal rather than performance which eliminates the need to stop the device.
 

ViRGE

Elite Member, Moderator Emeritus
Oct 9, 1999
31,516
167
106
Originally posted by: JBT
no I don't turn mine off. I go into device manager and tell it to set it's self for easy removal rather than performance which eliminates the need to stop the device.

 

Crappopotamus

Golden Member
Oct 1, 2002
1,920
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Originally posted by: JBT
no I don't turn mine off. I go into device manager and tell it to set it's self for easy removal rather than performance which eliminates the need to stop the device.

well what do ya know. thats the default too. im gonna tell off all the people who bitched at me :D cool.
 

Datagirl

Junior Member
Oct 29, 2004
2
0
0
Hi all,

Pardon the dumb question but where in the device manager is this info and how do you set it for easy removal? I need the info for WinXP Home and Professional versions. I am fairly competent but nowhere in the device manager for the USB hubs etc could I find this sort of setting.

Thanks in advance for the help.
 

Mermaidman

Diamond Member
Sep 4, 2003
7,987
93
91
IIRC, I recently read that it's OK to just "yank it out."

My desktop has WinXP Home and it admonishes me if I don't stop the device first. On my laptop (XP Pro), it doesn't do that :confused: I guess it really doesn't matter.
 

ScrapSilicon

Lifer
Apr 14, 2001
13,625
0
0
Originally posted by: Datagirl
Hi all,

Pardon the dumb question but where in the device manager is this info and how do you set it for easy removal? I need the info for WinXP Home and Professional versions. I am fairly competent but nowhere in the device manager for the USB hubs etc could I find this sort of setting.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Welcome to AnandTech forums ! :)
not under hubs,etc. but under disk drives>select your usb device/drive>properties>policies
 

wraith3k

Senior member
Apr 15, 2004
310
0
76
Originally posted by: JBT
no I don't turn mine off. I go into device manager and tell it to set it's self for easy removal rather than performance which eliminates the need to stop the device.

:thumbsup:

I didn't even know about this option.
 

Dug

Diamond Member
Jun 6, 2000
3,469
6
81
Originally posted by: ScrapSilicon
Originally posted by: Datagirl
Hi all,

Pardon the dumb question but where in the device manager is this info and how do you set it for easy removal? I need the info for WinXP Home and Professional versions. I am fairly competent but nowhere in the device manager for the USB hubs etc could I find this sort of setting.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Welcome to AnandTech forums ! :)
not under hubs,etc. but under disk drives>select your usb device/drive>properties>policies


Couldn't find this setting with 2 different drives on three different machines.
 

n0cmonkey

Elite Member
Jun 10, 2001
42,936
1
0
I always turn mine off because there is some nifty information on it that I might not have had a chance to backup yet (I do frequent backups of it, in multiple locations and media). If I wasn't important, I'd just yank the thing out.
 

ScrapSilicon

Lifer
Apr 14, 2001
13,625
0
0
Originally posted by: Dug
Originally posted by: ScrapSilicon
Originally posted by: Datagirl
Hi all,

Pardon the dumb question but where in the device manager is this info and how do you set it for easy removal? I need the info for WinXP Home and Professional versions. I am fairly competent but nowhere in the device manager for the USB hubs etc could I find this sort of setting.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Welcome to AnandTech forums ! :)
not under hubs,etc. but under disk drives>select your usb device/drive>properties>policies


Couldn't find this setting with 2 different drives on three different machines.

even on my main disk drives ..its there even tho its just grayed out..
 

batmanuel

Platinum Member
Jan 15, 2003
2,144
0
0
You have to right click the drive icon in My Computer and go to properties there. When it pulls up the drive properties window, go to the Hardware tab and you should see a list of all the drives installed on your machine. Click on the flash drive and hit the properties button in the lower right of the window. This will spawn yet another window for that specific drive. The radio butons you need are under the Policies tab.

On my computer running XP Pro, it defaulted to optimizing the drive for quick removal, so you may not even have to mess with it. I benchmarked my drive (a Microadvantage USB 2.0 drive) with SANDRA's file system benchmark and found no performance difference between the two settings, btw, so there is no real world advantage to optimizing it for speed that I can see.