What is USB Quick Removal?

[EaglesCrest]

I saw a question on device site that talked about it asked if the device could be set for USB quick removal. I am unfamiliar with this feature and would appreciate an explanation as to what it is.

Thanks

[Whyzman]

Welcome tohttp://www.pcguide.com/ubb/pcgubb.gif Forums!

You can see information on this feature by going to Device Manager. You can easily get to Device Manager by clicking on Start>My Computer (Right-click) to Properties>Hardware>Device Manager. Click on the + next to Disk Drives and it will expand.

Even if you don't have any USB drives connected you can Right-click on a listed harddrive>down to Properties>Policies tab...

There you will find information regarding "Quick Removal" or "Performance."

Although USB devices are "hot swappable," it is still necessary to make sure their "activity" has ceased before removing them from your system. I usually look for any LED activity signaling data transfer might still be in progress.

Mostly, this feature has to do with write/disk caching of data. If you perform the above procedure and find your fixed harddrive you will see that the area is greyed-out not allowing a choice for "Quick Removal."

More than likely, removable USB devices do not utilize write/disk caching, and thus the default value in XP is usually "Quick Removal" is already enabled.

Here's a comment from another thread in the PC Guide from Paul Komski:
that most USB devices don't have any sort of caching capability
Well its an interesting topic. Maybe USB devices with flash memory have no cache - I dont know the answer to that one - but most external HDDs are normal IDE devices in a USB shell and so would have just as much cacheability as when installed internally.

I think that if there is no caching going on and one uses one's common sense that any writes to the drive have completed one should be safe enough. With caching turned on and then cutting the power to the drive it is possible that part of file is still in the cache and not on the disk's storage sectors - that theoretically at least could corrupt the file system. RClicking on the drive in MyComputer and choosing eject will generally complete any uncompleted operations and probably stop any "flashing leds and the like".