"Safely Remove Hardware" Requirement?

[RickSchlegel]

Every time I hook up remote hardware to my N3 (card reader, thumb drive, camera), I keep trying to find the "Safely Remove Hardware" feature/icon I'm used to on the PC before I disconnect. No luck so far --- is there such a requirement in Android on this phone? All I can find in the instructions is that you should make sure no data's being transferred before you disconnect --- duh.

 

[Simon_Gardner]

Every time I hook up remote hardware to my N3 (card reader, thumb drive, camera), I keep trying to find the "Safely Remove Hardware" feature/icon I'm used to on the PC before I disconnect. No luck so far --- is there such a requirement in Android on this phone? All I can find in the instructions is that you should make sure no data's being transferred before you disconnect --- duh.

Hmm. I've definitely seen that for "unmounting" your internal microSD card Settings>general>Storage>Unmount SD card.

 

[RickSchlegel]

Hmm. I've definitely seen that for "unmounting" your internal microSD card Settings>general>Storage>Unmount SD card.

I'm OK with unmounting the microSD or SIM. I'm referring to external devices --- card reader, jump drive, etc. I've connected and unplugged a jump drive many times without the "Safely Remove" message, and don't seem to have blown anything up, but ...

 

[Simon_Gardner]

I'm OK with unmounting the microSD or SIM. I'm referring to external devices --- card reader, jump drive, etc. I've connected and unplugged a jump drive many times without the "Safely Remove" message, and don't seem to have blown anything up, but ...

I realised what you meant.

 

[Shofar]

With a jump drive (USB thumb drive?), you should go to storage and unmount before removing.

 

[dynomot]

Even easier, when connected to a USB flash drive or whatever tap the notification in your notification drawer and wait for the toast notification saying it is safe to remove :

 

[RickSchlegel]

Even easier, when connected to a USB flash drive or whatever tap the notification in your notification drawer and wait for the toast notification saying it is safe to remove

Bingo, dynomot --- you da man! Thanx!!

 

[Rukbat]

I've seen the "unmount" notice for jump drives every time I've connected one.

The only reason for unmounting, other than to not drive Linux crazy, is to assure that all bufferred data has been written to the device before you remove it. (Telling the phone to, for instance, copy a file to the jump drive, doesn't mean that it's going to stop everything and copy the file. It may take a few seconds or even a minute or two before the data is copied. If you unmount the jump drive, the phone will immediately finish the data transfer, then notify you that it's safe to remove the device.)

 

[dynomot]

I've seen the "unmount" notice for jump drives every time I've connected one.

The only reason for unmounting, other than to not drive Linux crazy, is to assure that all bufferred data has been written to the device before you remove it. (Telling the phone to, for instance, copy a file to the jump drive, doesn't mean that it's going to stop everything and copy the file. It may take a few seconds or even a minute or two before the data is copied. If you unmount the jump drive, the phone will immediately finish the data transfer, then notify you that it's safe to remove the device.)

Yeah, but surely you run a risk of corrupting the flash drive and/or borking your phone if you yank the USB flash drive while its copying/cutting files across? A large file like a video might take more than a few seconds, it would be rather a stupid thing to do to yank it then.