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Mac users: do you "eject" your memory cards?

RoamingScott
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Mac users: do you "eject" your memory cards?

Just curious as a recent Mac convert...I've always found the idea of "ejecting" an SD/CFE card before physically removing it a bit silly. Curious what everyone else does.

If voting yes, also interested if you have a personal anecdote about WHY you do it. I can't think of a legit concern for a removable card, but I can see why you might not do it on an external drive.

Mar 01, 2024 at 01:09 PM

Kenneth Farver
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Mac users: do you "eject" your memory cards?

When you eject the card you don't get the notice that you didn't properly eject it.
I guess I just follow instructions, sorry.

Mar 01, 2024 at 01:11 PM

paul weston
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Mac users: do you "eject" your memory cards?

Always

Mar 01, 2024 at 01:15 PM

curious80
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Mac users: do you "eject" your memory cards?

RoamingScott wrote:
Just curious as a recent Mac convert...I've always found the idea of "ejecting" an SD/CFE card before physically removing it a bit silly. Curious what everyone else does.

If voting yes, also interested if you have a personal anecdote about WHY you do it. I can't think of a legit concern for a removable card, but I can see why you might not do it on an external drive.

Ejecting ensures that if there is any pending write activity it will be completed, making sure it is safe to remove the card. In some cases you could get data corruption if you take it out without ejecting. This is not specific to Mac though - the same is true for windows and linux.

Mar 01, 2024 at 01:30 PM

RoamingScott
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Mac users: do you "eject" your memory cards?

curious80 wrote:
Ejecting ensures that if there is any pending write activity it will be completed, making sure it is safe to remove the card. In some cases you could get data corruption if you take it out without ejecting. This is not specific to Mac though. The same is true for windows and linux.

I get that, but with a card that will get immediately formatted when it gets back into the camera, my thought is "who cares", basically, regarding corrupting whatever is on there from the last session.

I don't think I've ever once ejected a card on Windows, even though the option exists in the right click menu

Mar 01, 2024 at 01:33 PM

chez
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Mac users: do you "eject" your memory cards?

I always do it. It’s one click…no biggy.

Mar 01, 2024 at 01:38 PM

curious80
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Mac users: do you "eject" your memory cards?

RoamingScott wrote:
I get that, but with a card that will get immediately formatted when it gets back into the camera, my thought is "who cares", basically, regarding corrupting whatever is on there from the last session.

I don't think I've ever once ejected a card on Windows, even though the option exists in the right click menu

Reminds me of a friend from my college days. We would go to a cafe during lunch break and he would often throw some trash on the cafe floor, arguing that since cafe floor is cleaned after lunch break it doesn't matter if he throws stuff on the floor. Suffice to say, we could never agree - he would continue to throw it on the floor and I would continue to take my trash and throw it in the bin

Mar 01, 2024 at 01:46 PM

RoamingScott
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Mac users: do you "eject" your memory cards?

curious80 wrote:
Reminds me of a friend from my college days. We would go to a cafe during lunch break and he would often throw some trash on the cafe floor, arguing that since cafe floor is cleaned after lunch break it doesn't matter if he throws stuff on the floor. Suffice to say, we could never agree - he would continue to throw it on the floor and I would continue to take my trash and throw it in the bin

Well that's about as bad of a metaphor as one could hope for!

Still waiting on the WHY besides "my mac yells at me".

Mar 01, 2024 at 01:49 PM

curious80
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Mac users: do you "eject" your memory cards?

RoamingScott wrote:
Still waiting on the WHY besides "my mac yells at me".

Why do you need that WHY? You have a way that works for you - you don't need anyone's approval to continue to do that. Looks like you want to argue that your way is the only correct or logical way - which is not true. People have given you good reasons for why they would want to eject. You should do what works for you, and let others do what works for them. This is really not worth any further discussion and argument.

Well that's about as bad of a metaphor as one could hope for!

It was meant in a light hearted way - but you seem to be the type who doesn't take well to someone disagreeing with you. Take it easy and have fun. I am out of this discussion

Mar 01, 2024 at 02:09 PM

inkinutz
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Mac users: do you "eject" your memory cards?

I vote yes.

Probably because I use the card as a temporary additional back up for the short duration until I've backed up the copied data and/or I'm done with that set and have properly backed it up.

*I had a longer winded answer before but felt it was not relevant to OPs original post.

Mar 01, 2024 at 02:11 PM

RoamingScott
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Mac users: do you "eject" your memory cards?

curious80 wrote:
Why do you need that WHY? You have a way that works for you - you don't need anyone's approval to continue to do that. Looks like you want to argue that your way is the only correct or logical way - which is not true. People have given you good reasons for why they would want to eject. You should do what works for you, and let others do what works for them. This is really not worth any further discussion and argument.

It was meant in a light hearted way - but you seem to be the type who...Show more →

I've been in IT for 20+ years with little exposure to Macs and their weirdnesses. I'm simply curious if there is a LEGIT reason they pound you over the head with the warning, or if it's no different behind the scenes than Windows...either case, I can definitely see why you wouldn't want to do a file archiving drive (who knows what's writing to at that moment).

I didn't say my way was the only correct one. If clicking eject gives you piece of mind, or you use the card for historical reasons for a time after, makes sense to do it the "safe" way.

Historically, Linux boxes were the worst offenders about not ejecting, I've seen some funkiness there.

Mar 01, 2024 at 02:30 PM

jwpstl
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Mac users: do you "eject" your memory cards?

You can also corrupt files that are being written to the computer from the card if you take it out. Using the eject option prevents this because it will tell you there is activity in process and won’t eject. Because we are all careless at times, best to eject.

RoamingScott wrote:
I get that, but with a card that will get immediately formatted when it gets back into the camera, my thought is "who cares", basically, regarding corrupting whatever is on there from the last session.

I don't think I've ever once ejected a card on Windows, even though the option exists in the right click menu

Mar 01, 2024 at 02:40 PM

inkinutz
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Mac users: do you "eject" your memory cards?

The file system seems to do different stuff (compared to windows) behind the scenes as well, both MacOS Ext and AFPS. I have had many card and drives go corrupt if I don't eject. If you ever plug in an exfat drive with lots of files you copied from MacOS into a windows machine, there will be a butt load of hidden files.

I feel like MacOS writes something to the drive before you eject, to close up the files. I could be totally wrong on this.

Mar 01, 2024 at 02:48 PM

justashooter
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Mac users: do you "eject" your memory cards?

Historically, Linux boxes were the worst offenders about not ejecting, I've seen some funkiness there.

The Macs OS X is Unix based. And after having a card that was was removed without being ejected ruined ( would not format on either Windows or Mac), I'll take the extra moment to eject it.

Mar 01, 2024 at 03:29 PM

tsdevine
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Mac users: do you "eject" your memory cards?

Yes, I try to do it. In fact I use Photomechanic to ingest my images and I have it set to eject the card after it is complete, partially so I don't forget.

I guess things have changed ,as back in the day when I used Windows more, I thought that it had a similar concept.

Mar 01, 2024 at 04:12 PM

TakesRandomPics
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Mac users: do you "eject" your memory cards?

There's nothing Mac specific here, filesystems dislike state changes without being given a chance to resolve any pending writes. Some are more robust when this happens but as you said if you're formatting post removal it's just the dialog box.

Now is there some rare 0.00001% scenario of possible physical damage to the storage media? That is outside my area of expertise but it's likely not outside the realm of possibility. Does ejecting reduce the probability of that scenario, I doubt it but it's also possible as I've not dug that deep into the actual mechanics of eject (sync; sync reboot old unix'ers will remember).

I will note that while I religiously eject I've definitely removed without ejection at least 10+ times and in all cases the card was perfectly fine. Small sample size but that indicates to me that any negative effects are likely low probability or at least low enough that they can be ignored.

Mar 01, 2024 at 04:57 PM

gregfountain
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · Mac users: do you "eject" your memory cards?

Yes. It's my understanding this has something to do with the Unix based OS that mounts and unmounts drives, but probably for the reasons suggested above - to ensure all writes are completed to mitigate damage to files or the media. Since I typically use an external SSD for initial offloads and storage, I want to ensure I don't contribute to probability.

Mar 01, 2024 at 05:28 PM

rscheffler
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · Mac users: do you "eject" your memory cards?

RoamingScott wrote:
I've been in IT for 20+ years with little exposure to Macs and their weirdnesses. I'm simply curious if there is a LEGIT reason they pound you over the head with the warning, or if it's no different behind the scenes than Windows...either case, I can definitely see why you wouldn't want to do a file archiving drive (who knows what's writing to at that moment).

I didn't say my way was the only correct one. If clicking eject gives you piece of mind, or you use the card for historical reasons for a time after, makes sense to do it...Show more →

Likely 99.999% of Mac users, including me, have no extensive IT or computing background. These are simply devices that do a certain range of tasks for the user, most of whom likely have virtually zero interest in knowing "why" things work the way they do as long as the results are to their liking. Therefore if the OS wants you to eject the memory card before removing it, there must be reasons Apple already determined, even if a very remote risk, to justify the requirement of this additional step.

And yes, I always eject disks, memory cards, USB thumb drives, etc. There have been plenty of times when a system error, power interruption, etc. caused involuntary ejection of external disks and AFAIK, none of them ever had permanent damage or loss of data. So sure, you can just pull them out and it will probably almost always be OK. But why risk it when it's a simple click or command-E to eject them?

Now, what I don't do that others apparently do, is I don't turn off my camera before removing memory cards. I just open the card door and that turns off the camera (Canon system). I do wait until the card activity light has turned off if it was busy clearing the buffer.

Mar 01, 2024 at 06:17 PM

docusync
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · Mac users: do you "eject" your memory cards?

The “Eject” would unmount the device if no I/O operations are in progress (including delayed cache writes) and then it will turn off the card reader (yes, the card needs power to function). Removing the card without going through this procedure is basically the same as unplugging a powered-up workstation from the power supply. You can theoretically do it, but something tells me it’s not a good idea.

Mar 01, 2024 at 07:26 PM

BillD208
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · Mac users: do you "eject" your memory cards?

Mar 01, 2024 at 10:37 PM

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