How to eject external USB drive?

[Voyager]

I connect a portable USB drive to the front USB port of my DS920+ for backups and file transfers. When I'm done , I want to eject/disconnect the drive, but can't find where in DSM I can issue the eject command. So, I end up having to shutdown the NAS first, disconnect the portable drive, then boot the NAS back up. Is there a way to eject the USB drive within DSM, so I don't have to go through the shutdown/reboot routine every time I need to eject the drive? Thanks!

 

[Deleted member 673]

Go to 'Control Panel' (Advanced Mode) - then 'External Devices'. From there, you can select the desired USB drive and click on 'Eject'.

Alternatively, you may find an 'External Drive' icon on the DSM task bar (top of window, left of the 'Notifications' icon). Clicking on that will also take you to a window that has an 'Eject' option.

 

[Voyager]

RoCaRay, Thanks for the quick and helpful response! I'm a new Synology user, still I'm embarrassed I missed finding the ways to eject the USB drive. Thanks again!

 

[Deleted member 673]

Welcome to the forum, @Voyager. I believe it is safe to say that everyone on this forum was once new. You understood what you were looking for; and that's a great start. Ron

 

[Voyager]

Welcome to the forum, @Voyager. I believe it is safe to say that everyone on this forum was once new. You understood what you were looking for; and that's a great start. Ron

RoCaRay, I only use the USB external drive once a week to do my Hyper Backup backup. When I read your response on how to eject the USB drive, I had not actually tried your instructions yet. Well, today is the day of my weekly backup, and I ran into the same problem. If I open External Devices, there are no devices listed. And there is nothing to the left of Notifications on the DSM task bar. If I open Hyper Backup, under Target, it says "Off-line" in red. This despite getting a Hyper Backup notification that says "Local backup - Local Storage 1 successful". What am I doing wrong?

 

[Deleted member 673]

Sorry to hear that. I've experienced that scenario in the past; and never found a definitive cause or solution. Hopefully someone on the forum will have more insight.

I was generally able to see the USB device both places after powering the NAS down and back up - with the USB device attached and on.

Regards, Ron

 

[fredbert]

With a local USB destination there is a setting that will eject the drive after the backup task has run: is this enabled in your task?

I suppose the thinking being that you remember to plug in the USB drive before scheduled runs of the task and afterwards you just have to unplug it... this can be delegated to someone without logging into DSM.

 

[Telos]

I suppose the thinking being that you remember to plug in the USB drive before scheduled runs of the task

Automate that...

sudo sh -c "echo 0 > /sys/bus/usb/devices/usb2/authorized"

sudo sh -c "echo 1 > /sys/bus/usb/devices/usb2/authorized"

 

[Voyager]

With a local USB destination there is a setting that will eject the drive after the backup task has run: is this enabled in your task?
View attachment 4703
I suppose the thinking being that you remember to plug in the USB drive before scheduled runs of the task and afterwards you just have to unplug it... this can be delegated to someone without logging into DSM.

Hi fredbert, I checked the Settings tab in Hyper Backup and did not find any option to eject the drive when the backup task completes. However, I just discovered that there is a log file, and found the following entry: "The backup destination device of the backup task [Local Storage 1] is unmount successfully." So perhaps Hyper Backup automatically (without giving me a choice) ejects the USB drive at completion?

This is good (now I don't need to shutdown to eject the drive), but then I have a second question regarding the Backup Integrity Check: If Hyper Backup automatically ejects after the backup is done, then doesn't that prevent the Backup Integrity Check from running? I don't see any log entry that says Backup Integrity Check was run (or that it failed to run, for that matter), so that is strange.

Is there a way to allow the Backup Integrity Check to run before Hyper Backup automatically ejects the USB drive?

-- post merged: 31. Oct 2021 --

Automate that...

sudo sh -c "echo 0 > /sys/bus/usb/devices/usb2/authorized"

sudo sh -c "echo 1 > /sys/bus/usb/devices/usb2/authorized"

Hi Telos, I'm sorry, my poor understanding of Linux got in the way of grasping what these two lines of code do. I assume they generate prompts to plug in and unplug the USB drive at the appropriate time? (My uneducated interpretation of those lines is that they write "0" and "1" to a file called "authorized" on the USB drive??)

 

[Telos]

my poor understanding of Linux got in the way of grasping what these two lines of code do

They cause the drive to be remounted.

 

[BobW]

This is an old post, but I'm looking for something similar to do for my external USB-Drive I use for Hyper Back.
@Telos I tired your suggested code but then I get this error message "External device USB Disk 1 on base was not ejected safely."
I
s there a way to do this the proper way without the warning and risking the change to damage my USB Disk?
I would like to use a script to auto mount and unmount the USB-disk before and after a Hyper backup via a task schedule.

Can anyone help me out with this? Also my USB-disk is powered by grid, don't know if this would be a problem?!
Thanks!

 

[Telos]

I get this error message "External device USB Disk 1 on base was not ejected safely."

While I can't say with certainty, it's possible that this message is only stating that the Synology GUI for disconnect was not used. Perhaps someone else will chime in.

I see this type of "warning" often after I have cleanly updated docker containers by the CLI, and I've learned to disregard that when the warning is associated with intentional activity.