Remove USB stick safely - why is this necessary?
Many users wonder why you should safely remove a USB stick if everything always goes well anyway. We clarify it.
Safely remove hardware - useful or not?
Hardware connected to the computer such as USB sticks, memory cards and external hard drives should generally be separated from the PC using the "Safely remove hardware" function.
- What happens: If you do not do this and simply remove the USB stick from the computer, data may be lost. As long as you do not remove the hardware safely, the computer has access to it and may still be in the write process.
- How to do it: If external hardware is connected to your computer, the symbol of a USB stick appears in the task bar at the bottom right (see picture). If you right-click on this, all available devices appear. Select the desired USB stick and you will receive a message that the hardware has been safely removed.
- Example: If you insert a USB stick into your computer, copy a Word document onto it and then pull the stick out again, data loss will hardly ever occur. However, if you opened the file shortly before and then overwritten it, removing it too quickly can lead to data loss.
- External hard drives: Especially with external hard drives, safe removal is essential. Simply pulling it out of your computer is comparable to a crash of your computer. You do not simply disconnect this from the power, but use the "shutdown" function.
- Conclusion: Even if most users think the function is superfluous, safe is safe. USB sticks rarely fail. However, it can always happen that a file is still in the write process. With external hard drives, safe removal is definitely a must.
In this practical tip you can read what exactly USB 3.0 is and what advantages the new version of the USB connection brings.