I've always been able to plug in and unplug my external HDDs on Windows 7 without issues. But I'm curious if it's as simple with Linux Mint Cinnamon, or if I need to be more cautious. I really don't want to risk losing all my data on the external drive!
6 Answers
If you absolutely have to yank it out quickly, at least run the command 'sync; sync; sync' before unplugging. It helps, but there's no guarantee. Just be careful with that!
While it's probably okay to unplug, you're still rolling the dice. If data is being written, it'll definitely be a problem if you remove it.
Always remember to unmount any partitions before pulling the plug. I swear by the gnome-disks utility for managing my removable drives. It helps with unmounting and also gives info about drive health. It's super helpful! Just make sure to install it if you haven't!
Come on, just use the eject button in the file manager! It's way easier than pondering it on Reddit. Just take that extra second before you unplug.
You definitely shouldn't unplug without properly ejecting the drive. It's a risky move! If your drive is writing data when you unplug it, there's a real chance you could lose that file or even corrupt the whole drive. Journaling filesystems like ext4 help a bit, but there's still a chance of losing data.
So, if I get this right, just the writing data gets lost? Or is there a chance of losing everything?
Yep, it's mostly the data being written at that moment. But if your directory structure is also being written to, that could cause bigger issues.
Wait, you’re still on Windows 7? Really? That's wild!
Isn't one sync enough? I learned that three syncs are for tape archives!