I often use external USB hard drives with Ubuntu, but I've always
wondered if unmounting is the same as ejecting? The reason I ask is
that, sometimes I forget the drive is plugged in on the desktop and when
I boot up, it is there of course but only the unmounting option is
present, eject never is unless I plug in the drive after Ubuntu is
already active.

Up until now, if I see that only unmounting is offered, I never unplug
the drive, just shut down and then USB unplug. I'm not sure it is safe
to unplug the drive after unmounting because I see that the drive LED is
still on, unlike ejecting where it goes from steady to blinking.

Thank you.

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Am Fri, 19 Nov 2021 09:38:45 -0500
schrieb Johnston <jj4509@aols.net>:

I often use external USB hard drives with Ubuntu, but I've always
wondered if unmounting is the same as ejecting? The reason I ask is
that, sometimes I forget the drive is plugged in on the desktop and
when I boot up, it is there of course but only the unmounting option
is present, eject never is unless I plug in the drive after Ubuntu is
already active.

Up until now, if I see that only unmounting is offered, I never
unplug the drive, just shut down and then USB unplug. I'm not sure
it is safe to unplug the drive after unmounting because I see that
the drive LED is still on, unlike ejecting where it goes from steady
to blinking.

It is not the same.
unmount only unmounts the partition, eject unmounts all partitions and
ejects the USB device.
You can't mount the partitions directly after that.

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On 11/19/21 1:02 PM, Marco Moock wrote:

Am Fri, 19 Nov 2021 09:38:45 -0500
schrieb Johnston <jj4509@aols.net>:

I often use external USB hard drives with Ubuntu, but I've always
wondered if unmounting is the same as ejecting? The reason I ask is
that, sometimes I forget the drive is plugged in on the desktop and
when I boot up, it is there of course but only the unmounting option
is present, eject never is unless I plug in the drive after Ubuntu is
already active.

Up until now, if I see that only unmounting is offered, I never
unplug the drive, just shut down and then USB unplug. I'm not sure
it is safe to unplug the drive after unmounting because I see that
the drive LED is still on, unlike ejecting where it goes from steady
to blinking.

It is not the same.
unmount only unmounts the partition, eject unmounts all partitions and
ejects the USB device.
You can't mount the partitions directly after that.

So, is there any way around it other than powering off if I already had
the USB drive plugged in? Can I modify something so that "safely
remove" shows up whether the drive was already plugged in at boot or not?

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Am Sat, 20 Nov 2021 09:00:51 -0500
schrieb Johnston <jj4509@aols.net>:

So, is there any way around it other than powering off if I already
had the USB drive plugged in? Can I modify something so that "safely
remove" shows up whether the drive was already plugged in at boot or
not?

I don't know what you exactly like to do.
Only use eject if you like to unplug the USB drive. Use unmount if you
just like to unmount the specific partition.

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On 11/20/21 9:48 AM, Marco Moock wrote:

Am Sat, 20 Nov 2021 09:00:51 -0500
schrieb Johnston <jj4509@aols.net>:

So, is there any way around it other than powering off if I already
had the USB drive plugged in? Can I modify something so that "safely
remove" shows up whether the drive was already plugged in at boot or
not?

I don't know what you exactly like to do.
Only use eject if you like to unplug the USB drive. Use unmount if you
just like to unmount the specific partition.

What I'm asking is if it is possible to have the "safely remove" option available at all times, not just if I plug in the drive after boot up?
Right now, the option is only offered if I plug in the USB drive while
Ubuntu is active.

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On 11/20/2021 7:42 AM, Johnston wrote:

On 11/20/21 9:48 AM, Marco Moock wrote:

Am Sat, 20 Nov 2021 09:00:51 -0500
schrieb Johnston <jj4509@aols.net>:

So, is there any way around it other than powering off if I already
had the USB drive plugged in?  Can I modify something so that "safely
remove" shows up whether the drive was already plugged in at boot or
not?

I don't know what you exactly like to do.
Only use eject if you like to unplug the USB drive. Use unmount if you
just like to unmount the specific partition.

What I'm asking is if it is possible to have the "safely remove" option available at all times, not just if I plug in the drive after boot up?
Right now, the option is only offered if I plug in the USB drive while
Ubuntu is active.

My understanding is that once the drive is unmounted, it's fully synced.
Since USB can be pulled at any time, it should be OK to remove.

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On 11/20/21 11:52 AM, red floyd wrote:

On 11/20/2021 7:42 AM, Johnston wrote:

On 11/20/21 9:48 AM, Marco Moock wrote:

Am Sat, 20 Nov 2021 09:00:51 -0500
schrieb Johnston <jj4509@aols.net>:

So, is there any way around it other than powering off if I already
had the USB drive plugged in?  Can I modify something so that "safely >>>> remove" shows up whether the drive was already plugged in at boot or
not?

I don't know what you exactly like to do.
Only use eject if you like to unplug the USB drive. Use unmount if you
just like to unmount the specific partition.

What I'm asking is if it is possible to have the "safely remove"
option available at all times, not just if I plug in the drive after
boot up? Right now, the option is only offered if I plug in the USB
drive while Ubuntu is active.

My understanding is that once the drive is unmounted, it's fully synced. Since USB can be pulled at any time, it should be OK to remove.

Not in my experience. If I unmount and disconnect USB, there are often
drive errors when active again. Only "safely remove" seems to fully disconnect it.

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Am Sat, 20 Nov 2021 08:52:07 -0800
schrieb red floyd <no.spam.here@its.invalid>:

My understanding is that once the drive is unmounted, it's fully
synced. Since USB can be pulled at any time, it should be OK to
remove.

Check the mount options. Maybe it is mounted with the sync option if
you plug it in after the bootup.

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Johnston wrote:

I'm not sure it is safe to unplug the drive after unmounting because I
see that the drive LED is still on, unlike ejecting where it goes from
steady to blinking.

I did some reading about commands to eject, where I also found a command
to power off the usb drive.

This thread starts 9 y ago and goes on to include Ub 20.04 in Mar.

https://superuser.com/questions/504256/how-can-i-safely-remove-my-usb-hard-drive-in-fedora-17
How can I safely remove my USB hard drive in Fedora 17?

--
Mike Easter

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On 20.11.2021 at 08:52, red floyd scribbled:

On 11/20/2021 7:42 AM, Johnston wrote:

On 11/20/21 9:48 AM, Marco Moock wrote:

Am Sat, 20 Nov 2021 09:00:51 -0500
schrieb Johnston <jj4509@aols.net>:

So, is there any way around it other than powering off if I
already had the USB drive plugged in?  Can I modify something so
that "safely remove" shows up whether the drive was already
plugged in at boot or not?

I don't know what you exactly like to do.
Only use eject if you like to unplug the USB drive. Use unmount if
you just like to unmount the specific partition.

What I'm asking is if it is possible to have the "safely remove"
option available at all times, not just if I plug in the drive
after boot up? Right now, the option is only offered if I plug in
the USB drive while Ubuntu is active.

My understanding is that once the drive is unmounted, it's fully
synced. Since USB can be pulled at any time, it should be OK to
remove.

Not necessarily. One of the default mount options for volumes on HDDs
and SATAs is "async". This means that when you issue the "umount",
there may still be data waiting in the various buffers, from RAM
to the device's own buffer.

The "eject" command makes sure the buffers are flushed. "umount" in
and of itself doesn't do that.

--
With respect,
= Aragorn =

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On 11/20/2021 2:46 PM, Aragorn wrote:

On 20.11.2021 at 08:52, red floyd scribbled:

On 11/20/2021 7:42 AM, Johnston wrote:

On 11/20/21 9:48 AM, Marco Moock wrote:

Am Sat, 20 Nov 2021 09:00:51 -0500
schrieb Johnston <jj4509@aols.net>:

So, is there any way around it other than powering off if I
already had the USB drive plugged in?  Can I modify something so
that "safely remove" shows up whether the drive was already
plugged in at boot or not?

I don't know what you exactly like to do.
Only use eject if you like to unplug the USB drive. Use unmount if
you just like to unmount the specific partition.

What I'm asking is if it is possible to have the "safely remove"
option available at all times, not just if I plug in the drive
after boot up? Right now, the option is only offered if I plug in
the USB drive while Ubuntu is active.

My understanding is that once the drive is unmounted, it's fully
synced. Since USB can be pulled at any time, it should be OK to
remove.

Not necessarily. One of the default mount options for volumes on HDDs
and SATAs is "async". This means that when you issue the "umount",
there may still be data waiting in the various buffers, from RAM
to the device's own buffer.

The "eject" command makes sure the buffers are flushed. "umount" in
and of itself doesn't do that.

Ah, I was not aware of that. Thanks. I'm stuck in the old days, mentally.

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On 2021-11-20, Johnston <jj4509@aols.net> wrote:

On 11/20/21 9:48 AM, Marco Moock wrote:

Am Sat, 20 Nov 2021 09:00:51 -0500
schrieb Johnston <jj4509@aols.net>:

So, is there any way around it other than powering off if I already
had the USB drive plugged in? Can I modify something so that "safely
remove" shows up whether the drive was already plugged in at boot or
not?

I don't know what you exactly like to do.
Only use eject if you like to unplug the USB drive. Use unmount if you
just like to unmount the specific partition.

What I'm asking is if it is possible to have the "safely remove" option available at all times, not just if I plug in the drive after boot up?
Right now, the option is only offered if I plug in the USB drive while
Ubuntu is active.

The USB drive is safely removed until it is either plugged in or mounted
during booting, as it is not connected to the file system.

If the drive, all partitions, are not mounted then unplugging the drive is okay.

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On 2021-11-20, Marco Moock <mo01@posteo.de> wrote:

Am Sat, 20 Nov 2021 09:00:51 -0500
schrieb Johnston <jj4509@aols.net>:

So, is there any way around it other than powering off if I already
had the USB drive plugged in? Can I modify something so that "safely
remove" shows up whether the drive was already plugged in at boot or
not?

I don't know what you exactly like to do.
Only use eject if you like to unplug the USB drive. Use unmount if you
just like to unmount the specific partition.

Keep in mind, the USB drive may have only partition on it.

In which case unmounting will allow one to disconnect it physically. (Pull
the plug).

To my mind using the word eject is not the best word. When it applied to CD
it made sense.

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Marco Moock <mo01@posteo.de> writes:

Am Sat, 20 Nov 2021 08:52:07 -0800
schrieb red floyd <no.spam.here@its.invalid>:

My understanding is that once the drive is unmounted, it's fully
synced. Since USB can be pulled at any time, it should be OK to
remove.

Check the mount options. Maybe it is mounted with the sync option if
you plug it in after the bootup.

The sync option (and its opposite, the async option) are primarily
concerned with the speed vs. crash consistency balance during ordinary operations. Asynchronous writes improve speed at the cost of possibly
losing some or all of the data on the file system upon a crash (with
some file systems being nicer wrt the loss than others, but last I
looked in the Linux documentation, I found guarantees only for
NILFS2).

Synchronously written file systems are supposedly safe against
corruption (at the cost of much slower writes), so you could
theoretically unplug the USB stick without umounting it first, but:

* Hardly anybody mounts file systems synchronously, so this is tested
rarely, and therefore has a chance of being buggy.

* The block device (e.g. USB stick) itself may itself perform writes
asynchronously without the file system taking notice.

In practice I umount the (asynchronously mounted) USB stick, wait some
seconds, then unplug it. Some sticks has a light that blinks when
writes are happening; in that case I wait until the drive has stopped
blinking. I have also seen sticks turn the light on on mounting and
off after umounting when it's safe to eject (but I have also seen
sticks where the light continued to be turned on after umounting;
maybe I will try "eject" next time).

- anton
--
M. Anton Ertl Some things have to be seen to be believed anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at Most things have to be believed to be seen http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html

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