USB removal, IMO, has always been a bit of an issue but seemed much better in W0 and 11.
My method has been to check Device Manager- Disk Drives - Properties - Policies to see how Windows sees the drive. For USB drives in W11 it has always shown as something like set "For Quick Removal (Default)" so there is no caching involved and you can unplug it as desired. I certainly do not check this every time I use the drive. I have never had to my knowledge any problems with this.
If you try to figure this out by Googling, you will get lots of contradictory opinions.
12-05-2025, 02:30 AM (This post was last modified: 12-05-2025, 02:36 AM by Dude Guyman.)
(12-05-2025, 01:15 AM)CDC9762 Wrote: USB removal, IMO, has always been a bit of an issue but seemed much better in W0 and 11.
I get this "Device in use" junk on Windows 10 all the time, seemingly at random. Without Hasleo installed. Often without ever actively doing anything that would access the disk (opening, moving files, or making a WinRAR archive on it, etc.) Sometimes just opening the USB drive in Explorer, hitting "F5", then closing it fixes it. Sometimes nothing seems to, and it requires a reboot. It's just one of those obnoxious "Windows things" I've learned to live with.
I do not set it to do "Better performance = enable disk caching" but it made no difference when I did, still had "device in use". I find all that does is tell Windows to "lie" to you about if it is finished moving files or not. It will say it's finished with a large file move long before it really is.
I always make sure Explorer is closed if I have the problem and that often fixes it. I don't know about now, but in the older days, Explorer was considered as part of the OS that was always present to some degree - that's about all I vaguely know about it.
12-05-2025, 05:54 AM (This post was last modified: 12-05-2025, 06:01 AM by garioch7.
Edit Reason: add a sentence
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I have always found the Windows removal of external devices to be problematic. My solution years ago, after some online research was to purchase a product called USB Safely Remove for both of my computers. I doubt that Hasleo is the problem, but that program displays what processes are preventing safe removal of an external USB hard drive or flash drive.
Interestingly, one of my clients was having constant problems with safely ejecting Flash Drives. I bought him a license for that program, and the culprit turned out to be Dropbox locking his USB flash drives behind the scenes. Even more interesting was that the program I purchased for him seems to have "convinced" Dropbox to let go of the drives when it is asked to do the ejection. His drives now eject immediately using that program.
There is a 30-day free trial, so you can quickly identify which program is locking a removable drive. I would bet that it is not Hasleo. I have been using Hasleo Backup Suite Pro since the day it went on sale when I purchased a lifetime license for five devices, and it has never locked my external drives.
And, by the way, all of my external drives are set for "Better Performance," not "Quick Removal."
I am not advertising that ejection program. I am only sharing my experience with it over many years. I am simply a very satisfied customer with two lifetime licenses for that program.
I share this information only to provide Forum members with a quick and easy way to determine what processes Windows "thinks" are locking an external drive from being safely ejected. In my experience, with big copy jobs, the culprit most often turns out to be Windows own indexing service, which finishes usually in a few minutes at most.
@Garioch7
Have you ever tested for Better Performance when using a USB drive for writing a large multi-GB file so see if it really helps? I can see it helping on lots of small files but not so much for a large file. This was a problem on SSDs - great performance until the caches got filled and then it was back to the device's native write speed.
I don't have a dog in the fight, I'd sooner be a bit slower but with less chance, albeit small, of corruption.
12-05-2025, 08:40 AM (This post was last modified: 12-05-2025, 08:43 AM by bjm_.)
(12-04-2025, 07:44 PM)admin Wrote:
(12-04-2025, 12:00 PM)bjm_ Wrote: Okay...I watched Resource Monitor from start to completion. I find no Disk Activity on D:\ and yet the device is currently in use.
That is indeed strange. Aside from user processes, are there any system processes (such as svchost.exe) accessing the drive? Is this USB drive the source or the target drive?
Maybe you can try taking the drive offline in Windows Disk Management and then ejecting it.
Resource Monitor watching D:\ was quiet. USB drive is the target.
How do I use Disk Management to take drive offline?
(12-04-2025, 07:44 PM)admin Wrote: That is indeed strange. Aside from user processes, are there any system processes (such as svchost.exe) accessing the drive? Is this USB drive the source or the target drive?
Maybe you can try taking the drive offline in Windows Disk Management and then ejecting it.
Resource Monitor watching D:\ was quiet. USB drive is the target.
How do I use Disk Management to take drive offline?
Right-click the disk header, then select "Offline" from the pop-up menu, but this does not apply to USB flash drives.
(12-05-2025, 07:53 AM)CDC9762 Wrote: @Garioch7
Have you ever tested for Better Performance when using a USB drive for writing a large multi-GB file so see if it really helps? I can see it helping on lots of small files but not so much for a large file. This was a problem on SSDs - great performance until the caches got filled and then it was back to the device's native write speed.
I don't have a dog in the fight, I'd sooner be a bit slower but with less chance, albeit small, of corruption.
@CDC9762,
No, I have not conducted any research into the time differences between "Better Performance" and "Quick Removal." I do copy my large image files to external drives, and I also copy lots of small files, about 6,000 files, generated by a Robocopy batch file I created, both using Teracopy. I relied on online research to choose "Better Performance," plus the admission by Windows itself that it promises "better performance."
I have been using USB Safely Remove since December 2019. I have never had any corruption to an external hard drive or a flash drive using that program to eject my external media, and it gets used almost daily. On Fridays, when I do my imaging and copying, it is used with multiple devices that day.
12-06-2025, 07:21 AM (This post was last modified: 12-06-2025, 07:22 AM by Dude Guyman.)
(12-05-2025, 07:53 AM)CDC9762 Wrote: @Garioch7
Have you ever tested for Better Performance when using a USB drive for writing a large multi-GB file so see if it really helps?
I have. The difference for me moving from an SSD to an external HDD was Windows will report a faster transfer speed (~178 vs 70) until the cache is full (source to cache instead of source to target), and appear to be finished, but in reality, it is still moving the file from the cache to the actual target in the background, so it's no faster in reality. That's why I say all it is in reality is a "Lie to me" toggle. If there is any speed gain, it was imperceptible to me on ~8 GB files. Smaller files are almost instant either way.
12-06-2025, 08:15 AM (This post was last modified: 12-06-2025, 08:23 AM by bjm_.)
(12-05-2025, 05:54 AM)garioch7 Wrote: I have always found the Windows removal of external devices to be problematic. My solution years ago, after some online research was to purchase a product called USB Safely Remove for both of my computers. I doubt that Hasleo is the problem, but that program displays what processes are preventing safe removal of an external USB hard drive or flash drive. [...]
USB Safely Remove listed three items. Laptop external mouse, integrated camera and Bluetooth adapter...because their driver does not support the authentic "safe removal" feature.
as test: Haselo Backup Main UI closed & disable three USB Safely Remove items.
~ using lappy mousepad
Does (should) Backup Service release after Haselo Backup Main UI is closed?
