external hard drive

when the Mac first came out, ejecting a disk was more intuitive.

You dragged the disk icon to the Trash, and if it was an ejectable drive, a ghostly image of the drive remained, which you could also drag to the trash when you were done, or it would mount quickly later if you re-inserted the drive.

Today's shortcut has been shortened to drag disk to Trash, it ejects and you are done. That is not as nice because other things you drag to the Trash you want gone forever. (There is a subtle little touch that the Trash sometimes momentarily becomes an Eject icon in certain cases.)

The process of Ejecting a drive writes the 'checked out' RAM copy of the Directory back to the drive and marks the directory as checked back in, so the drive will be mounted without issue later.

You can shutdown, which will also check back in the RAM copy of the Directory, but it is unnecessarily cautious.

You can also plug/unplug displays 'live' although that makes some people cringe.

Eject and then disconnect.

There are several ways to Eject an external drive.

1. Control (right) click, then select Eject,
2. Eject it from the Finder Sidebar.
3. Drag to the Trash,

You’re welcome.

You are very welcome.

My satisfaction comes in helping you understand how to enjoy using your Mac and do your important work (and play).