Does an external hard drive park as soon a you unplug the USB cable?

[ontodva]

My external HDDs are all set for quick removal, so there is no cache to concern me. I don't want to bother with the Windows eject utility as it doesn't work reliably. I pull out the USB plug and then switch off the power.

Will this damage the hardware?

 

[James Mason]

One day, yes.
If it's being accessed when you unplug it, you can lose your data on it.

 

[ontodva]

Losing data and damaging hardware are different categories. I am only interested in the hardware for this thread.
NB I unplug the USB then switch off power, in that order.