Question In Windows 11, do you have to safely eject a mass storage device or can you just unplug it?

[Moondoggy]

Is it true that in Windows 10 and Windows 11 you no longer have to click on the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the system tray to eject a USB connected mass storage device?

I'm running Windows 11 Pro and most of the time my new Samsung portable SSD takes forever to say that the drive can be successfully removed or it never does and I just have to wait until I shutdown and then remove it. Yesterday I was trying to research why it's taking so long thinking that it must be something that's configured wrong in Windows 11 or the device as memory sticks indicate that they are safe to remove most all of the time. During my search for a solution I found an article that says that clicking on "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" has been outdated since Windows 10. The article goes on to say that by default, all USB mass storage devices are configured to be removed simply by unplugging them and that there is not need to eject them through the Safely Remove Hardware icon. That being said, I posted a query on the Microsoft Community forum and on the ElevenForum and got two different answers. On the Microsoft Forum a member said that yes, it is now safe but on the ElevenForum most said that it was only true for flash drives and in this case my device is a SSD and that I run the risk of ruining the drive if I simply unplug it.

So before I go and start unplugging my USB SSD without first ejecting it I'd like someone to confirm it's OK simply to unplug it as I use this SSD to hold my Macrium Reflect system backups for disaster recovery and I don't want to loose my backups.

 

[kerberos_20]

that depends, if theres some data in RAM cache which has yet to be written on drive, than those data can get lost as RAM needs power to hold data, once its flushed, than its safe to eject, so that eject button pretty much flushes that cache
if it takes forever to safely eject, then some 3rd party app is blocking it

https://imgur.com/nqPvEHx

View: https://imgur.com/nqPvEHx


you can disable it in device manager for those drives, than you can unplug them without worries, so you can have quick removal (caching off) or slow removal (caching on)

 

[Bob.B]

Is it true that in Windows 10 and Windows 11 you no longer have to click on the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the system tray to eject a USB connected mass storage device?

I'm running Windows 11 Pro and most of the time my new Samsung portable SSD takes forever to say that the drive can be successfully removed or it never does and I just have to wait until I shutdown and then remove it. Yesterday I was trying to research why it's taking so long thinking that it must be something that's configured wrong in Windows 11 or the device as memory sticks indicate that they are safe to remove most all of the time. During my search for a solution I found an article that says that clicking on "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" has been outdated since Windows 10. The article goes on to say that by default, all USB mass storage devices are configured to be removed simply by unplugging them and that there is not need to eject them through the Safely Remove Hardware icon. That being said, I posted a query on the Microsoft Community forum and on the ElevenForum and got two different answers. On the Microsoft Forum a member said that yes, it is now safe but on the ElevenForum most said that it was only true for flash drives and in this case my device is a SSD and that I run the risk of ruining the drive if I simply unplug it.

So before I go and start unplugging my USB SSD without first ejecting it I'd like someone to confirm it's OK simply to unplug it as I use this SSD to hold my Macrium Reflect system backups for disaster recovery and I don't want to loose my backups.

No idea if it's needed or not I'm just in the habit of using the option.
Have you tried a different usb port?
Post a link to the article that says it's not needed.

 

[Moondoggy]

I'm stumped and so is Samsung. I contacted their Tech Support today and explained what was going on and after looking at this and that and doing some testing the tech didn't have a reason why it was being held. My assumption after using a utility that showed me where in the registry the device exists it leads me to believe that even though it's a portable device, my system is viewing it as a more permanent external hardware as it's showing up in the register where my SSD drive is located whereas flash drives are listed in another section of the registry. After spending about 45 minutes on the phone with the Tech he could not offer a solution but did say that because it is portable and the policy is set for quick removal, I can remove it by unplugging it with little fear that anything bad would happen assuming that I know that nothing is actually being written to the drive.