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We are often cautioned against unplugging USB drives in case it is currently being read from or written to. When a computer is suspended, hibernated, or asleep is it obviously not writing any data; it may have been in the middle of a read/write, however, it will have put such an operation on hold.
Since no arms are moving (for USB hard-drives), or bytes on the drive flickering on and off (for flash drives), is it then "safe" to unplug a drive?
Is this true even if data is being written to it, but the operation temporarily "suspended"? (assuming you don't mind that specific file only having been half-written to the drive)
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Related, almost a duplicate: Does Windows flush drive caches on standby?
– Ilmari Karonen – 2014-02-16T11:52:48.6705
...and also Is it safe to disconnect a SATA disk during sleep? and is it safe to unplug a USB drive while Windows is in sleep/hibernate/off mode? The latter one is an exact duplicate, except for being explicitly about Windows, whereas your question doesn't indicate a specific OS.
– Ilmari Karonen – 2014-02-16T12:01:32.120