Once the operation was complete I then proceeded to remove the drive from the computer - she almost had a heart attack. She wanted to know if I was trying to spoil her flashdrive and questioned me as to why I had not ejected it the "proper way".
Well, i'm sure several of you may be interested in the "why" behind my action so here goes:
When you choose to dismount/eject a USB drive or device via the option in the system tray of your Microsoft Windows-based computer, the operating system ensures that all the data waiting to be stored or written to the drive is stored and the operation completed before taking the drive offline.
Now on OS X (for the Apple fans out there), something called write caching is used to speed up file transferring operations, therefore it is a very good idea or practice to always dismount the flashdrvie before removing it from the computer, even if it appears to be idle as evident by no blinking activity light on the drive.
On Microsoft Windows-based computers (all the version we now use) on the other hand, write caching is not enabled by default for USB devices so you can safely unplug or remove the drive without having to necessarily dismount it first.
WARNING - You need to ensure that there are no files being transferred to or from the device before pulling it out. You can use the activity light on your flashdrive as a guide.
NB: I am NOT RECOMMENDING that you remove your flashdrives this way, but know that you can and the drive and your data will be just fine once you heed my earlier warning (in RED above).
Thank you for that reminder, Jervis! Sometimes, hastiness to plug off the devices can cause shortage and render it useless in the long run. We can alsways extend the life of our devices by plugging it off the way it should be. (Marko Broz)
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