Re: IDE write cache and journaling file systems

[Seth Mos <knuffie@xs4all.nl>]

At 09:28 18-4-2002 -0600, Jim Buzbee wrote:

>We've got a bit of an issue. From conversations on this list over the
>last few months, it appears as if enabling the write cache on an IDE
>drive is a "bad thing" when using a journaling file system such as XFS.
>But, when talking to drive manufacturers, we are told that if the write
>cache is disabled, the life of the drive is substantially reduced.  This
>puts us in a bit of a hard place. We have little choice but to turn the
>write cache on.

If that was so a lot of disks would be failing these days. It's all nice 
and dandy but if your power supply goes, your filesystem integrity will go 
with it.

I have never had write cache on any of my disks enabled and I have so far 
lost just 4 disks of the 12 over the last 6 years. 2 of which were from a 
_really_ bad seagate series drive.

So far all the maxtor drives I have are still alive.
I also have 1 out of 3 IBM deskstar disks which is beginning to fail after 
1,5 years.

Repeatingley switching disks on and off is not really good for the disk either.
Workaround: Don't use the disk.

;)

Cheers

--
Seth
It might just be your lucky day, if you only knew.