Comment 84 for bug 1067876

Hello, Sebastien!

I’ll summarize my posts here.

My main linux distro is Ubuntu 12.04 and I think that Ubuntu is the best distro and will fix the bug #1 soon :)

In Ubuntu 12.04, Gentoo stable, Debian 6 and Debian 7 safely remove works for both USB-flash and USB-HDD.

In Ubuntu 12.10 and 13.04 (even with Gnome 3.8 from ppa); OpenSuse 12.3 and Tumbleweed; Fedora 18 and 19; Sabayon 11 safely remove does not exist or does not work as before.

I did some tests at my free time for Ubuntu and linux community. It seems that this bug is not Ubuntu-oriented, it is distro-wide.

We have 94 users affected by this bug here (they does not make as much buzz as me) and some in other bug-trackers.

I tested 4 USB-flashes and 1 USB-HDD on different PCs and distros (see my table at Google Docs for product names and USB VIDs and PIDs - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ao5e713Ig9g_dEtqbmhOVnJuVmRmOEx1QXpMSncwbEE#gid=0 ).

1. USB flashes
I understand that removing unmounted (and synced) flash is quite safely operation. But in 12.04 (and other distros) flash led switched off after Safely remove. For me it is more comfortable to remove flash which LED is switched off.

In Ubuntu 13.04 I see Safely remove entry for only one my USB flash (Kingston DataTraveller G2 16 GB), and it works as expected (after pressing Safely remove LED on flash switched off, flash is removed from lsusb, fdisk -l and gnome-disks).

For 3 other flashes I see only Eject option. After pressing Eject LED on flash is switced on, flash is removed from fdisk -l, but still exists in lsusb and gnome-disks). After Eject I can not switch USB-flash manually (by udisks --detach).

2. USB HDDs
In Ubuntu 13.04 there is no way to spin down USB-HDD from GUI. I can spin down HDD only from console with udisks --detach. There is a Safely remove option in Nautilus window, but it does not spin down the drive. It removes drive from lsusb, fdisk -l and gnome-disks, but plates are rotating. I understand that SATA HDD are hot-swappable, but it’s not comfortable for me to remove rotating hard-drive.

So I hope that convenient safely remove will be back in next releases of major distros and Ubuntu.

I prefer LTS versions of Ubuntu - I use 12.04, and safely remove works in it as I expect.
If you does not believe my results - you can repeat these tests by yourself.