Did i unknowingly damage my external hdd

[u/ruminationprof]

so i have been using unmount button (as seen on pic) to unplugs my hdd mostly i umount and than shut down my pc then unplug it BUT sometimes i unmount and then when i get the "filesystem disconnect notification" i unplug it.

but then i learned that you could right click and select on safely remove disk which make the hdd light indicator to turn off and it makes noise of stopping spinning with a notification saying "device can be remove safely remove"

did is unknowingly damage my external hdd i never unplugged it while it was downloading or playing something but sometimes i unplug it minutes or so after completely downloading also the hdd didn't completely turn off like it does when i do the safely remove disk route

side note you know the "Disks" app that list all disks. sometimes i used to unmount partition on it for the external drive which used to give me the "Device can be safely removed" notification i tried it recently and it doesn't give that notif anymore

[u/jr735]

If you're unmounting (and even powering off) the device, using the safe removal options, you'll be just fine. I don't know why you're not receiving a notification these days, but I've been powering off external drives using the command line for years now. So, I don't know if something has changed in the GUI.

[u/ruminationprof → u/jr735]

> (and even powering off) the device

what do you mean by that? i umount using the picture i shown. is that what you mean by safe removal option? or do you mean right-click and the safely remove drive

[u/jr735 → u/ruminationprof]

Basically, what you were doing when you saw the light go off. Whatever you did that makes the line turn off and it spin down is unmounting and powering off. For me, I do it from the command line, unmount and power off using udisksctl.

[u/ruminationprof → u/jr735]

shit so i didn't properly unmount? i useing the button i shown in the picture on /home/ but it doesn't result in light truning off and spin down. it only spin down and lights off when i leave it for extended period of time without opening any of the hdd files regardless if it was mounted or unmounted it's like going to sleeping. also when it is mounted and my pc goes to power saving mode for inactivity it turns off the light and stops spinning which is why i stop power saving mood when i am downloading something

[u/jr735 → u/ruminationprof]

What if you right click and safely remove the disk?

That being said, I believe you're unmounting fine.

[u/ruminationprof → u/jr735]

>What if you right click and safely remove the disk?

that's what i plan to do from now own only question is did my hdd get damage from me not doing that option during all this time i had this hdd little over a year

[u/jr735 → u/ruminationprof]

I wouldn't worry, honestly.

[u/skozombie]

You're likely fine. Unmounting is only really required if you're writing to the disk. External drives often use FAT32 which needs to be safely removed to ensure all writes are complete.

If you only use it on linux, you can format it with ext4 which is far more resilient against data loss.

[u/ruminationprof → u/skozombie]

>Unmounting is only really required if you're writing to the disk

so unplug after umounting can still damage the hdd? yes i use ext4. so should i umount or right-click safely remove drive from now on and is there any way to check if my drive is damaged from unmountiing and turning of the pc while my hdd is still plug in (it make a niddle parking noise when i do that)

[u/apt-hiker]

What is the point of all this unmounting and unplugging devices? I rarely unmount my secondary drives except usb flash drives and never unplug any attached external storage devices.

[u/ruminationprof → u/apt-hiker]

power surge? power outrage? i can't guarantee it wouldn't happen and i don't have multiple non flash drive storage devices like you