[Thunar-dev] Unmount removable devices systemtray app

[Brian J. Tarricone]

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Alexandre Moreira wrote:

> I don't own this kind of device (well, I do, but I hardly use it)  but
> someone told me some time ago that this kind of action was not needed
> because of the write-through cache linux uses in this kind of device
> -- you would only need it to stop blinking to take it off, and it
> would be already synced.
> 
> Is this correct ?

No no no no noooooooo.

First of all, as someone already mentioned, the cache strategy is
configuration-dependent.  Secondly, if you just pull the device, the
filesystem will not get unmounted, which means it will need a fsck the
next time you insert it (or journal recovery, depending on the
filesystem).  While this often isn't a big deal, it can be.  If there
are changes to the FS's superblock, they may not get flushed to disk.

Please, never advocate things that you don't understand, especially when
- -- as you admitted! -- if you're wrong, it can cause data loss.  If it
really is true, likely someone else will know for sure.

	-brian

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