Windows 10 updated to enable USB 'Quick Removal' default

[HEXUS]

But you can switch back to 'Better Performance' and the unplugging warnings if you wish.

Read more.

[Irien]

Given how people use USB storage devices, it rather boggles the mind that this wasn't the default behaviour already. The default option should always be the "safe" option, so at least it is sorted now.

[Iota]

I guess I'm going to show my age now and say I'll revert to the previous behaviour. I've always felt like I should unmount my detachable drives prior to removing them.

[Tabbykatze]

I'm being honest here, i can't remember the last time I safely removed a USB thumb drive...and through not safely removing, i can't remember the last time it getting corrupted.

USB HDDs though, always safe remove.

[winactive]

What about SD cards?

[chrestomanci]

Given how fast electronics are compared with puny humans, perhaps the USB thumb drives could be modified to detect when the user is in the process of removing them, so that windows can flush the cache in the 100ms that it takes to physically remove the drive.

[philehidiot]

Given how fast electronics are compared with puny humans, perhaps the USB thumb drives could be modified to detect when the user is in the process of removing them, so that windows can flush the cache in the 100ms that it takes to physically remove the drive.

I remember someone stripping down and playing with a computer from the 1980s (some specialised testing deelie) and he found it reacted to the voltage drop of being turned off, wrote some shutdown message to the screen (which wasn't on long enough for people to see) and did some other stuff which I assume was flushing any cache. What was interesting is that there wasn't a proper power loss protection system in it (obviously there were capacitors for other things) but it reacted fast enough to do several things whilst it was losing power.

[Ttaskmaster]

We go through so many flash drives at work, because someone always just yanks them out.
I actually have two sets of them - One that I allow others to borrow, and one just for my own use.

[LondonTom]

I honestly can't think of a time when I actually removed it safely, despite the warnings! (or the last time I really used used a USB drive for storage.)

[aidanjt]

Given how people use USB storage devices, it rather boggles the mind that this wasn't the default behaviour already.

Yup, most people handle them very carelessly. But then they also moan that their '5 gbps' flash drive is slow as balls if they actually have to wait for the NAND flash to actually write data to them. So they're kinda damned if they do, and damned if they don't cache writes into memory. That said, they should have erred on the side of data integrity.