This has been haunting me for years. I just did a 'net search on this subject and found old posts of my own from as far back as 2012. One was a discussion between myself, Snowhog, and Claydoh! Anyway...
...The issue is [RANT] one cannot simply unmount a USB thumb drive (stick) without using the command line. Dolphin won't do it and neither will the Device Notifier. The only option, once the stick is mounted, is to "Safely Remove" which disconnects the stick from the system requiring you to pull it out, count to 2, and plug it back in. Freakin' annoying, stupid, and unnecessary. My PC sits under my desk on the floor a few feet away and my monitor has USB ports on the back of it that are reachable with enough twisting of the wrist and elbow to qualify me as a contortionist. [/RANT]
To validate what I'm saying, here's my Dolphin options for my mounted SSD:
You see "Unmount" is the only option - appropriately because it's a fixed device.
However, when I select my USB stick:
All I get is "Safely Remove" which is effectively equal to "Eject" and no other options. This is not appropriate because there are times when you would want to unmount the device without ejecting it. For example, this morning I needed my 64GB stick to transfer some data to a windows machine. So I inserted it, looked at what was on it so I could save any needed files, then I wanted to format it. So I had to "Eject" it, pull it out and plug it back in, then I could format it.
Conclusion: SO after all this ranting and years of this bugging me, I discovered the Partition Manager can, and does, allow you to unmount a partition and reformat it without ejecting it. I don't know if this is new functionality in Partition Manager or I just didn't know about it. Regardless, I was using the wrong GUI "tool" for the job. I am no longer sure if Dolphin or at least the Device Notifier actually need unmount functionality for USB sticks.
It seems the File Manager is not a Device or a Partition Manager ...
...appropriately.
...The issue is [RANT] one cannot simply unmount a USB thumb drive (stick) without using the command line. Dolphin won't do it and neither will the Device Notifier. The only option, once the stick is mounted, is to "Safely Remove" which disconnects the stick from the system requiring you to pull it out, count to 2, and plug it back in. Freakin' annoying, stupid, and unnecessary. My PC sits under my desk on the floor a few feet away and my monitor has USB ports on the back of it that are reachable with enough twisting of the wrist and elbow to qualify me as a contortionist. [/RANT]
To validate what I'm saying, here's my Dolphin options for my mounted SSD:
You see "Unmount" is the only option - appropriately because it's a fixed device.
However, when I select my USB stick:
All I get is "Safely Remove" which is effectively equal to "Eject" and no other options. This is not appropriate because there are times when you would want to unmount the device without ejecting it. For example, this morning I needed my 64GB stick to transfer some data to a windows machine. So I inserted it, looked at what was on it so I could save any needed files, then I wanted to format it. So I had to "Eject" it, pull it out and plug it back in, then I could format it.
Conclusion: SO after all this ranting and years of this bugging me, I discovered the Partition Manager can, and does, allow you to unmount a partition and reformat it without ejecting it. I don't know if this is new functionality in Partition Manager or I just didn't know about it. Regardless, I was using the wrong GUI "tool" for the job. I am no longer sure if Dolphin or at least the Device Notifier actually need unmount functionality for USB sticks.
It seems the File Manager is not a Device or a Partition Manager ...
...appropriately.
<[/RANT] , but you do know that you can by ,and their cheep , a USB extension cord to keep your wrist safe 
,,,,you can even get this strange thing called a hub to go in the end of it .
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