removing external usb hdd without unmounting causes reboot?

[Baldur Gislason]

This really struck me as a problem when I had a short power outage and my external USB hard drive
wasn't plugged into the UPS. Laptop didn't reboot from the power outage but it rebooted
anyway because it lost a hard drive (which was mounted but I wasn't doing any work on)

Baldur

On Wed, Jul 18, 2007 at 06:30:44PM +0200, Momchil Ivanov wrote:
> On Wednesday 18 July 2007 17:41:04 Oliver Fromme wrote:
> > As Josh wrote, it's expected.  The problem is known
> > to exist for a long time already (probably as long
> > as FreeBSD itself exists), and if there was an easy
> > solution, certainly someone would have fixed it.
> >
> > Just remember to always umount first, and you're safe.
> > In the early 90s I panicked a FreeBSD machine by
> > removing a floppy disk that was mounted.  I did that
> > mistake only once -- afterwards I always remembered.
> >
> > If you have problems remembering, another work-around
> > is to use the auto mounter daemon (amd(8)).  It umounts
> > file systems automatically that are not in use.
> > Another nice feature of amd(8) is that you don't have
> > to mount the file system either -- Simply plug the USB
> > stick in, then access it, and amd(8) will automatically
> > mount it for you.
> >
> > Best regards
> >    Oliver
> 
> I started the thread just because it hit me today. I wanted to disconnect my 
> mouse and forgot that the hdd is connected to the same hub, I realized that 
> after having unplugged the usb hub and saw the system freeze. I know that 
> this has been an issue for a long time. With cdroms it`s easy, the tray won`t 
> open until you umount the cd fs, floppies......... nowadays they have been 
> replaced by usb sticks, but they have no trays as cdroms do :) moreover 
> people use other usb storages too and unplugging those is just as simple as 
> unpluging the cable.
> 
> I think this is a critical problem and needs to be addressed, avoiding it 
> doesn`t solve it.
> 
> As technology advances I think FreeBSD has to advance too. You said you 
> paniced a system in the early 90s, which is more than 10 years from now. In 
> the past floppy disks were maybe the only problem, but nowadays as storage is 
> cheap more and more people use USB storage devices, and these are easy to 
> unplug. It`s even worse if you have a laptop, since it`s easier to connect 
> everything to a hub (mouse, hdds, other usb stuff) and connect/disconnect it.
> 
> In the days before common storage devices (hard drives) where fixed inside the 
> computer`s case, so unpluging a hard drive when the computer was running was 
> considered as "insane", so panicing is ok. Nowadays things have changed. USB 
> (maybe Firewire too, have no experience with that) offers a simple way to 
> connect/disconnect devices to your computer (here I have to note: not just 
> one!), having a laptop and 1,2,3 or even more external storage devices is 
> something usual.
> That`s why I think this particular problem needs to be addressed.
> 
> Thanks for the tip about amd(8) I will give it a try.
> 
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