USB Drives – Just Yank It

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USB Drives – Just Yank It

by Chris (vile_is_dead)

Last update 12 Dec 2023

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The older you are the higher the probability that you always safely eject your USB drives since this has been ingrained in our collective memory. The times have changed, and in truth, in 99% of cases, you can just yank your USB drive out and be on your merry way with no repercussions.

The Quick Rundown

The reason you can just take your flash drive and run out is because Windows by default does not enable the write cache on your device meaning that the file is directly being transported instead of being cached first and then moved over.

What this means is that as long as you are not in the process of transferring files while unplugging your device, the chances of you losing data are non-existent. Since version 1809 Windows uses the Quick removal policy by default meaning devices such as USB flash drives are kept in a state in which they are always ready to be removed from the PC.

Quick removal disables cache disk write operations by default and you do not need to use the Safely Remove/Eject option. For your regular drives (SSDs/HDDs) you can enable the write cache option since it can improve system performance.

The Steps

To ensure you are using the correct settings you should check the policy for your USB drive:

Search -> Device Manager -> Disk drives -> Right-click the drive you want -> Properties -> Policies -> Disable write caching and enable Quick removal for USB drives/Enable write caching for regular drives

TL;DR

You can just yank USB drives from your PC as long as Quick removal is enabled or write caching is disabled for the device. This is valid as long as you are not actively transferring files at the same time.

If your device properties for the USB drive are set up correctly, and you have confirmed this fact, the chances of you experiencing catastrophic failure while plugging out your flash drive without safely ejecting it first are non-existent.

About The Author

Chris (vile_is_dead)

Custom Windows ISO enjoyer, FPS optimizer, and aim improvement enthusiast. Will disassemble all of his peripherals (and sometimes PC parts) to mod them even if all of them work perfectly fine. Discord/Twitter: vile_is_dead

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