Messages in this thread |  | | | Date | Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:55:45 -0700 (PDT) | | From | Linus Torvalds <> | | Subject | Re: Linux 2.6.29 |
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On Tue, 31 Mar 2009, Alan Cox wrote: > > How about the far more regular crash case ? We may be pretty reliable but > we are hardly indestructible especially on random boxes with funky BIOSes > or low grade hardware builds.
The regular crash case doesn't need to care about the disk write-cache AT ALL. The disk will finish the writes on its own long after the kernel crashed.
That was my _point_. The write cache on the disk is generally a whole lot safer than the OS data cache. If there's a catastrophic software failure (outside of the disk firmware itself ;), then the OS data cache is gone. But the disk write cache will be written back.
Of course, if you have an automatic and immediate "power-off-on-oops", you're screwed, but if so, you have bigger problems anyway. You need to wait at _least_ a second or two before you power off.
Linus
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