Windows 10: In Windows 11, do you have to safely eject a mass storage device or can you just unplug it?

Is it true that in Windows 10 and Windows 11 you no longer have to click on the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the system tray to eject a USB connected mass storage device?Since Windows 7 I've always clicked on the "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" to remove USB connected drives. This sometimes gets frustrating as frequently, the reply from an attempt to eject the drive is the message that the device is currently in use, to close any applications using it and try again so you check and nothing is using the device and the PC is basically in neutral and you try and try again and the mes

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In Windows 11, do you have to safely eject a mass storage device or can you just unplug it?

Is it true that in Windows 10 and Windows 11 you no longer have to click on the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the system tray to eject a USB connected mass storage device?

Since Windows 7 I've always clicked on the "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" to remove USB connected drives. This sometimes gets frustrating as frequently, the reply from an attempt to eject the drive is the message that the device is currently in use, to close any applications using it and try again so you check and nothing is using the device and the PC is basically in neutral and you try and try again and the message continues to pop up.

I'm now on Windows 11 and most of the time my new Samsung portable SSD takes forever to say that the drive can be successfully removed or I just have to wait until I do a shutdown and then remove it. Tonight I was trying to research why it's taking so long thinking that it must be something that's configured wrong in Windows 11 or the device as memory sticks indicate that they are safe to remove most all of the time. During my search for a solution I found an article that says that clicking on "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" has been outdated since Windows 10. The article goes on to say that by default, all USB mass storage devices are configured to be removed simply by unplugging them and that there is not need to eject them through the Safely Remove Hardware icon.

So before I go and start unplugging my USB SSD without first ejecting it I'd like someone to confirm it's OK simply to unplug it as I use this SSD to hold my Macrium Reflect system backups for disaster recovery.

Thanks.

 

Problem Ejecting UBS Mass Storage Device

Hi,

You may click this
link and check the post of Ajay K on March 24, 2011 to resolve your problem in ejecting USB mass storage device.

Hope this helps.

 

Ejecting USB Mass Storage Device

Best to ask Google like so. You'll get lots of instant answers to this non-trivial question:

Problem ejecting USB mass storage device