Correct way to power down Reach

I am wondering if there is a correct way to shutdown the reach. Until now I just pulled the power. But I am developing some python scripts to read some external sensors and these got corrupt yesterday after pulling the power. The files are in a folder in /home/reach.

So is there a need to correctly shutdown the reach? (for example with ssh: sudo shutdown -h now)

During development I have samba active to easily get to the files.

My main concern is what happens when I am using a reach in the field. Can the files (reach or my own) get corrupt when pulling the power?