How come "ejecting" devices works so darn well in OS X and is rubbish in XP & Vista?

I've always wondered this. Ejecting most of the time in XP or Vista never works first time. Tells you the drive is in use, even when it's not and no window is opened containing the drive. On occasion it NEVER work, forcing me to just yank the cord out of the computer, or do a restart. In OS X I'd say that 99.9% of the time you can eject a device immediately, and the other 0.1% it doesn't work is usually because a window containing drive data IS open, thus user error.

I also noticed my hard drives actually shut down when I eject them in OS X whereas they may not shut down in XP/Vista even when they DO eject.

So what's the deal? What makes OS X so special? (I love it).

 

Dunno. Hardly used Mac in decades, myself. I'm obviously missing out on a near perfect experience. Thanks so much for showing me the light.

 

Well my drives always eject perfectly... Always has on Windows since Windows 98 (my first Windows version)...

Sounds like you have other issues? Or are just parading for Jobs?

 

You don't have to eject the device you can just remove it by using the safely remove hardware icon on the taskbar or you can go to properties on the drive and click on policies and have the optimize for quick removal option selected.

 

But isn't rubbish an superb word choice?

 

I never had a problem with that in XP. Of course, I never used XP to eject a disk, that task was reserved for the actual disk drive buttons.

oh, I see now that you're talking about drives, probably as in jump drives. I think the reason it's easier to eject in OS X is because the drive shows up on the desktop as an actual drive that you can just drag down to the dock to eject(or command+E, the way I do it, OS X is very shortcut friendly). I never really had that much of a problem with the Windows way of doing it, but I do like OS X's style much more.

Edit: That just made me think of something. Why don't usb drives come with a button to safely eject them manually? It would be nice if the data could be locked on the drive without OS approval first.

 

It might depend on the device. I have a USB key that doesn't really eject in OS X. It'll disappear from the finder when I eject it, but it still receives power because the LED is on. In XP, the LED will actually turn off when it's ejected.

 

U3 enabled flash drives have problems when not in Windows. They don't actually shut off when you eject them. That's an issue with the drives, not the operating system.

As per ejecting in Windows, there are usually a few processes still hanging onto the flash drive, including Windows caching. But if you click the "Safely Remove Hardware" button and choose the flash drive, it should work every time. I've had very few issues with it, but they do come up from time to time.

 

They still would need the OS's approval. The whole reason you have to eject them in the first place is to be sure that the OS is done writing to the drive. In a journaled file system, it does not always immediately write to the disk when you do something.

 

I'm not talking about Bootcamp XP/Vista issues. I'm talking about normal Windows systems (Dell etc...). It's never guaranteed to work first time after doing any transfers etc. Sometimes, sure, it does work first time. But the majority of the time (for me), it doesn't.

And no, there are no "issues" with my Windows machines. My wife's T41p is the same way. In the history of systems I've used, Windows just sucks for ejecting drives. Perhaps there is some settings to adjust, but it should just work out of the box.

And the "rubbish" word choice is because I'm English.

 

What are you talking about ?
Removing a USB drive ? or a hard drive ? or a optical drive ?

XP sometimes has a delay when a USB drive is installed for the first time only becuase of driver install. BUT after that its just in and out no buttons to push no nothing.....

Of course if you try and pull it out before a file tranfer is finished then LOL look at that error batman

 

I'm talking about any drives, be it flash, hard etc.

 

Well assuming we are not talking system drive and that we are also talking about a valid version of XP then I don't know ?
Been using XP since it came out and never had any issues with just pulling them out of the plug ..... i did have a problem with a USB hard drive once but it turned out to be the hard drive itself was not formatted correctly to begin with....

 

I've never had any problems "ejecting" anything with XP.
I have a USB flash drive, MP3 play and a few other things I plug into my USB drive, I never had any problems disconnecting them.

 

Exactly, are you parading for Jobs?

I've never had this problem, with USB flash drives, SD cards, Memory Stick Pro Duo, CDs, DVDs, etc. Right-click the icon in the System Tray, and click the option for safely removing the device. Just make sure any relevant windows the device is using are closed, and it always works. To eject your CD/DVD, press Fn+E.

 

The "safely remove hardware" Icon is where it's at. Click the stop and the device and it's definitely good to go. Of course, I treat them like floppies. Wait a few seconds and eject them. By default, removable hardware aren't cached for performance and thus the bulk of operations are performed immediately.

If you are having continued problems, they are likely driver/hardware issues rather than OS/ PC issues.

 

I've never "ejected' anything from Windows (ever since my first USB device) it wasn't until I used a Mac that I found out about the ejecting concept. I found out the hard way when it nerfed (couldn't think of another polite word for it lol) a usb stick drive. With Windows I just pull the stick drive out or whatever device it is without a care but with a mac I have to eject it first. To be honest it's my biggest complaint with a mac! I thought USB devices were supposed to be hot pluggable?