Windows 10 users can unplug external storage devices before ejecting them, Microsoft said recently.
Well, it’s not the first time Microsoft has said this, but the company is confirming that you can indeed feel free to yank those external drives out of your machine at will if you’re using Windows 10 version 1809.
Is not ejecting to a drive really the best thing to do?
Well, if you’re writing files to a drive, you definitely do not want to yank it out — like ever. But there is a way to remove drives sitting idle without ejecting that won’t wreck your gear.
Microsoft says if you use its “quick removal” setting on drives that your machine will make a drive “ready to remove at any time.” But freedom to yank out those external devices also means Windows won’t be able to cache disk write operations. “This may degrade system performance,” according to Microsoft.
The other option — the one that’s made many an I.T. person scold those who do not safely remove hardware — is called “better performance.”
“This policy manages storage operations in a manner that improves system performance,” says Microsoft. “When this policy is in effect, Windows can cache write operations to the external device.” The trade-off is that you just have to remember to eject before unplugging the drive.
To see what your machine’s default is, plug a drive in — any drive. Then, right-click the Start menu, and then select Disk Management. In the bottom section of the Disk Management window, right-click the label or letter of the device you just plugged in. Then click Properties followed by Policies.
In Policies, you’ll be able to choose the policy you want to use on this particular drive.
Microsoft advises that if you pick “better performance,” you should also select “enable write caching on the device.”
