Difference between Eject, Unmount & Safely Remove?

[ashwinhgtx]

When I right click on a mounted drive in the desktop I get the option to Unmount, Safely Remove and Eject. Could anyone explain the difference between these three options?
I'm on Karmic RC btw, it rocks.
Thanks in advance.

[jacksaff]

Unmount removes the disk from the file system. It makes sure any information waiting to be written to the disk gets written.
Safely remove is just a non-techy way of saying unmount.
Eject unmounts and then ejects the media.

[ashwinhgtx]

Unmount removes the disk from the file system. It makes sure any information waiting to be written to the disk gets written.
Safely remove is just a non-techy way of saying unmount.
Eject unmounts and then ejects the media.

Thanks for the prompt answers. But may I know why all three are being displayed for an external hard drive? Can't it be context sensitive and display Eject only for a CD drive and Safely Remove for everything else?

Isn't it a more user friendly way of doing things? It would also reduce the clutter.
Anyone else have any similar thoughts? Please correct me if I'm wrong about these options.

[philinux]

On a mounted internal drive I'm only offered unmount, maybe its a to do with external drives like usb sticks/drives and so forth.

[ashwinhgtx]

On a mounted internal drive I'm only offered unmount, maybe its a to do with external drives like usb sticks/drives and so forth.

But why have all three options for an external hard drive or a USB pen drive? Wouldn't that confuse new users?

[alphaniner]

Having the option to Unmount or Eject is intended for CDs & DVDs. Safely Remove may be something new to Karmic, I've never seen it. It's probably a bug that you're seeing all the options.

[mcduck]

"Unmount" unmounts a single partition, "Safely Remove Drive" unmounts all partitions of that device.

For example if you have a removable hard drive with 2 partitions selecting "Safely Remove Drive" for one of them would unmount both partitions, so that the device can be safely unplugged from your computer.

"Eject" is for media that can actually be ejected, like CD/DVD drive. So it unmounts the media and then ejects it (quite important if you happen to have a slot drive without a physical eject button).

Which ones appear in the right-click menu depends on what type of device/media it is. For some devices even having all three options would make perfect sense.

[ashwinhgtx]

"Unmount" unmounts a single partition, "Safely Remove Drive" unmounts all partitions of that device.

For example if you have a removable hard drive with 2 partitions selecting "Safely Remove Drive" for one of them would unmount both partitions, so that the device can be safely unplugged from your computer.

"Eject" is for media that can actually be ejected, like CD/DVD drive. So it unmounts the media and then ejects it (quite important if you happen to have a slot drive without a physical eject button).

Which ones appear in the right-click menu depends on what type of device/media it is. For some devices even having all three options would make perfect sense.

How does having all three for a USB flash drive make sense? I'm just curious as I'm don't know much on how *nix handles partitions.

[Primefalcon]

Having the option to Unmount or Eject is intended for CDs & DVDs. Safely Remove may be something new to Karmic, I've never seen it. It's probably a bug that you're seeing all the options.

It is new to karmic, I think its just for familiarity with windows users, I could be wrong though

[mcduck]

How does having all three for a USB flash drive make sense? I'm just curious as I'm don't know much on how *nix handles partitions.

Perhaps "Eject" will spit out the flash drive automatically?

No, I agree that having the "Eject" option for a USB flash drive doesn't make much sense..