Hi, just received my Vero 4k recently and I’m very impressed so far. The one thing I haven’t been able to find however is a function to “Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media” like there is in Windows and Android. Does the Vero 4k have such an option? I play a lot of media via an attached USB portable hard drive and remove it quite often to update.
It should be under the context menu if memory serves. That’s the three lined button on the OSMC remote.
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Thanks Sam, I found it there but after I selected “Remove Safely” the drive was still spinning when I went to remove it.
It does not spin down the drive; it unmounts it.
Sam
So it’s considered “safe” to remove the drive as long as it’s unmounted but still spinning - unlike the Windows version that shuts down the drive completely?
Yes. As long as the drive is not actively mounted, it is safe to remove it.
When you unplug the drive while it is still mounted, chances are some bits are not written back to disk, and the filesystem status would be uncliean - requiring a filesyste, check fsck) on next mount.
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Do you use NTFS or ExFat? What is best?
NTFS can be more secure and is safer.
Some older android devices do not support exFAT and may mount NTFS read-only. Depends on what you want you want to plug it into and how big the drive is.
Whats the keymap shortcut to map a key to safely remove disk?
Also is it safe to remove hard drive when it is in sleep mode without using safely remove. Would clicking safely remove while sleeping make it wake the hard drive up again.
I noticed that unplugging drive while sleeping brought up the chkdisk message when plugged into PC.
- NTFS is crap in the sense that it is closed source and M$ may add things without the community of driver-coders to know. Hence, the issues you saw recently also with the SMB protocol (SMB v1/2/3 etc.).
- exFat I would use only on USB Sticks I need to transfer data with.
I am using Linux’s ext4 Filesystem whenever I can and if it makes sense. On my NAS for example.
Works flawlessly for years (and I mean years - started with ext2 some 25 years ago,then ext3 and now ext4). I don’t have the same nas anymore, but it was never a problem to get one disk and put it into the next NAS. Works.
For those wanting to get a new NAS - check out the recently releases HP Microserver gen10 - they even remove ILO (which is a bliss, at last. On the gen8, ILO costs about 1min30sec boot time).
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Benefit of NTFS: you can at least read from it on any OS and write without problems with Linux and Windows.
That’s the reason I switched back from Ext4 to NTFS. I use Windows a lot as well and I could only find paid solutions to install ext4 write support on Windows. It doesn’t make sense to me to pay to access my files…
I don’t have any problems with NTFS on OSMC, have been using it for years. I don’t even notice it is NTFS.
I use a Mac. The external HDD is 5TB. What is the general consensus for a file system? I’m just starting out so have no problem formatting and starting again. Currently it is NTFS.
The thing is - if you have a NAS, so far the easiest and simplest Network file system is NFS. Plain and simple. It just works.
With AppleTalk, Sambe etc. there are always issues showing up over time.
Since I use Windows only Gaming (Dedicated Gaming Rigs without AV), I don’t care what Microsoft wants, or Apple wants. NFS it is.
If you have a NAS, then the actual filesystem is unimportant. You can use NFS with NTFS or ext4. The OP is talking about a USB drive.
Indeed I use NFS as well between Raspberries and Vero. Works fine with NTFS drive.
I would like to still be able to connect my USB drive directly to my laptop. For example after travelling to copy GBs of photos instantly. Or to take it with me on a weekend break.
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Thanks for the reply. That’s what I expected but just wanted to verify. I’ve always thought that I would be safe to remove a drive as long as it’s not being written to, as is the case if it’s been unmounted.
That is only true if the drive is mounted in sync mode. But even then, the driver intelligence will not flag this drive as securely unmounted and will request a filesystem check on the next mount to be safe.
Sam, I was looking for this exact thing, as in our use of the Vero, we very frequently swap USB keys. Found the answer here, but would it not be a good idea to put basic things like this in the “how to” ? In the absence of a user manual, that is the first place new users would look, no?
Another question: this function with the “3 lined button” on the remote only works after entering Setting and File management (not sure if this is the terminology in English, as mine is set to local language, but you will know what I mean). Would there a possibility to make this easier/quicker accessible, like from the main (home) menu? Where you now have Music/add ons/Picture/Videos/My Osmo, there could be an addl line “Eject USB”.
When the usb is plugged in just go to Videos → Files highlight the drive you want to safely remove press the 3 line button and select safely remove.
I just counted that’s 4 clicks with the remote.
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