Copying Data To USB Flash Drive

[Sajan Parikh]

I've been using Ubuntu for years now, but have only recently started to 
use USB flash drives for larger files.  Usually things are sync'd on my NAS.

I've noticed when I copy about 5GB of data, the transfer progress window 
shows that it goes really fast and is complete.  However, when I go to 
eject the drive, I get the message, "Don't Unplug...".

I then have to wait an absurdly long, unpredictable time before the 
message "You can unplug...".

I assume it's writing to some sort of buffer at first, and only flushing 
to disk when I try to eject.

Is there any way for me to write directly to the disk, or at least get 
some sort of progress on when I can **actually** unplug my drive?

I've tried using Nautilus to drag and drop and rsync.

Thanks.

-- 
Sajan Parikh