After you’ve transfered all your data on/off, why cant you simply take out the stick? where’s the harm?
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For performance reasons, computers use layers of caching* to minimize writes. The “eject” option will ensure those caches get fully flushed before telling you it is safe. If you unplug the device randomly, those caches may not be written, resulting in data corruption on the disk. Depending on the nature of the corruption, this may only affect a small number of files, or, in very rare cases, it may make the entire disk unreadable.
This same process applies for the main disk drives in your computer as well, however you don’t normally remove them while the computer is running. A full system shutdown will also make the USB stick safe to remove.
* If you care, you typically have three layers: application, operating system (OS), and drive. Its not uncommon for an application to have two or three caches itself, and the OS driver may have an additional one between the OS and drive, on top of the OS’s primary one.
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