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Mac OS X Disk Utility doent get my external drives ready for removal.

In windows, clicking safely remove hardware from the taskbar stops the spinning of my external drive, but in my Mac OS X Yosemite, I can feel that the external disk is still spinning even after selecting Unmount and Eject.

How to handle removing external drives on Mac OS X?

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  • Once you've ejected it, it's ready for removal. Not all drives spin down immediately when they're ejected. You don't need to use Disk Utility for this, you can just use the Finder Eject command.
    – Barmar
    Nov 6, 2014 at 19:50

1 Answer 1

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OS X is a little different than what you're used to on Windows. The easiest way to safely eject a drive is to click on the icon on your desktop and press command+E to eject it. Once it disappears, you can unplug it without error.

Alternatively, you can:

  • Drag and drop the icon from your desktop to your trash, which will change into an Eject icon
  • Go to Finder and press the Eject button next to the drive's name on the left-hand side
  • Right click on the drive and eject

Here are some images, borrowed from this blog post, to help you:

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  • Hi, thanks for the reply. But all those methods did not get my external drives to stop the spinning. I can feel that it is still spinning inside. Is it okay to uplug it even though it is still spinning?
    – Me Wowlol
    Nov 7, 2014 at 13:23
  • Yes - you absolutely can. If a drive isn't being accessed then the Read/Write head won't be moving, just the platters. It's no concern for data integrity nor longevity to unplug at that point. Just don't shake it like a martini :)
    – mbb
    Nov 7, 2014 at 13:34

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