Is it safe to just yank an external hard drive if you know nothing is writing to it?

Posted by Nathaniel on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Nathaniel
Published on 2010-04-02T01:26:52Z Indexed on 2010/04/02 1:33 UTC
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external-harddrive

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unmount

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damage

Yes, I know somewhat about the possibility of data corruption if there was data that hadn't been all written to it.

But I just saw this:

Note:If u remove HDD(not USB sticks) without safely removing it,its not healthy and will affect life.

So, if nothing is actually writing to it, could there actually be any harm caused by not safely removing or unmounting it before disconnecting it?

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