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Do you really need to “safely” eject a USB drive?
For years, the rule has always been to eject your USB drive before removing it from your computer. Of course, a lot of people ignore this outright and just yank the drive, and for the most part, their data is fine. So, is it safe to pull a drive without first properly ejecting it? Almost always yes, but sometimes — rarely — no.
When can you remove a USB drive?
You can remove a USB drive when it isn't actively in use. Until Windows 10, it was necessary to go through the steps to eject a drive, but now Windows users can remove a USB drive without worry (although pulling it when data is transferring is still a bad idea.) When it comes to macOS, Linux, and other operating systems, it's still recommended — although not explicitly necessary — to eject the drive first.
When you write data to the drive, there's a limit to how quickly everything is transferred. Even though you might instruct your computer to store the data on the USB, it doesn't necessarily mean all of it will be sent at once. Some data might be stored in the cache to be moved later, and if you remove the drive without ejecting it first, the data could be lost. However, unless you're moving extraordinarily large files (uncompressed video footage, for instance), most of the data will transfer immediately.
While this practice commonly refers to USB flash drives (or thumb sticks, as some call them), it also applies to external drives. Whether you use an HDD or an SSD, act with an abundance of caution. It's better than losing data.
Of course, ejecting a drive is not always as straightforward as it might seem. All too often, you might see an error that says something along the lines of, "This USB drive can't be ejected." That warning is meant to stop you from removing a drive while it's actively in use, but you more than likely know when the transfer is done. While we can't guarantee there is no risk to your data, many of us have removed drives "unsafely" for years, even before Windows 10 changed the game.
Rest easy. It's probably fine.
How to format a USB drive on Windows 11
Want to clean up a USB drive, or change its file system? It's easy to format a USB drive on Windows 11, and we're here to show you how.