Getting new laptop and going to have to copy lots of files from desktop. Been wanting a thumbdrive anyway, but as have several SD cards and a reader, that might be as good a way to do it.
The card reader, like most USB devices, has to be “safely removed” when done with it, which isn’t a big deal, but time consuming and a pain.
Do the thumbdrives have to go through this ritual too, or can they just be plugged in and pulled out without the disconnecting process?
FWIW, I’ve never “safely disconnected” any of my memory cards – ever. I treat 'em like floppies or CDs/DVDs; insert 'em, use 'em, pull 'em. The reason for the “safely remove hardware” schtick is A) So that no data loss/damage can occur from Windows not getting a chance to write delayed/cached data to the card (AFAIK removable storage devices aren’t cached anyway) and B) So Windows can power down the PCMCIA slot before you remove the card (irrelevant to memory cards.)
I’ve never had any issues with my memory cards from doing this – and I’ve been doing it for a good long time. In fact I don’t know anyone else who uses the “safely remove…” routine for memory cards either.
Windows treats thumb drives the same as memory cards in a reader – they’re essentially the same thing; a thumb drive is just a memory card with its own reader built around it.
I unplug mine without “stopping” the device all the time. I do make sure that the computer is not writing/reading (blinking activity led) to the thumb drive, though.
Ditto post #2 and #3.
My understanding is that Win XP does not require this step, but earlier versions of Windows may. In fact you may have to download drivers and install them if you’re not using Win 98 or earlier.
Just be sure you don’t remove the drive while it is in the middle of transferring data.
Thanks, guys, that info will save me a lot to time and aggrivation!
I have the SimpleTech Bonzai in my pocket right now. It’s an “empty” thumb drive with a slot for an SD card in it. I plug my SD to Mini SD adapter into it, and the actual storage is the Mini SD. On occasion it’s been useful to plug the SD to Mini SD into a CF to SD adapter (mine’s actually a Minolta). That then goes into my PCMCIA to CF adapter which goes into my laptop. Interestingly, the CF to SD adapter greatly increases the transfer speed when compared to using a vanilla CF card.
Thumbdrives are handy if you want to keep your data attatched to your car keys. I used to use a Memory Stick and a reader/writer for it that I would keep in my backpack As long as I had the backpack, I could get at the stuff on the memory stick. My thumbdrive holds the same amount of data as the memory stick, but it is more convenient for me since I don’t need the read/writer (though I do still carry the USB extension cord that the read/writer came with, it’s handy sometimes).
My two cents:
I often have several different programs and files open at the same time. Ejecting the thumbdrive via the XP system tray icon allows me to ensure that all changes were saved before ejecting the thumbdrive. And let’s face it, how much time does it really take to eject?
My Memorex thumb drive says to use the WinXP eject method before removing. Win9x OSes have no such method. I have to wait for the light to stop blinking and hope it goes okay. Sigh.
I too have sometimes unplugged my thumb drives and my memory card readers without properly disconnecting them, and have never suffered any ill-effects.
That said, i have to ask: WTF?
A lot of time?
I just inserted a thumb drive into my computer. I then disconnected it by going through the proper procedure of clicking on the little system tray icon and telling the computer to shut down the usb key.
Total time taken for disconnection process: approximately two seconds.
If doing this really constitutes a “lot of time and aggrivation” in your life, i suspect that you have bigger prblems than disconnecting computer peripherals.
Yes, but by doing so you have no guarantee from the operating system that all data was successfully transferred. For all the OS knows, the data is now corrupted. Thus the burden lies on you.
I’m well aware of that.
Of course, if the usb key has been sitting idle in the slot for half and hour, and you haven’t even touched the computer in that time, chances are pretty good that no data transfer is occurring.
That said, on 99% of occasions i do remove it properly. The only times i haven’t have been a few occasions where, for some reason, Windows decided to make the system tray icon dissappear and i couldn’t stop the usb key without turning off the computer.
That wasn’t on my system, though, and it’s a problem i’ve only run into on a couple of occasions.
OK this is true, but if the thumbdrive has been sitting for a half hour and it has a Word document that you made last minute changes to a half hour ago but didn’t save locally (and Windows/Office AutoRecovery save didn’t get it) you could lose your changes.
Maybe you were looking at a picture on a memory card in the thumbdrive and had rotated it or made other changes.
On the other hand, when you try to eject a thumbdrive while you are running an application or have a file open it will tell you the disk is not ready to put away.
I realize it is usually OK to just rip 'em out, but I’m a little touchy about these things because it takes like two seconds to eject the right way. Exactly how busy are you guys? Its not a quick start at Le Mans, gentlemen, you can put your keys away properly.