Messages in this thread |  | | Subject | Re: Sync option destroys flash! | | From | Lee Revell <> | | Date | Fri, 13 May 2005 17:25:00 -0400 |
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On Fri, 2005-05-13 at 12:20 -0400, Michael H. Warfield wrote: > Under the right circumstances, even copying a single file to a flash > drive mounted with the "sync" option can destroy the entire drive! > > Now that I have your attention! > > I found this out the hard way. (Kissed one brand new $70 USD 1GB flash > drive good-bye.) According to the man pages for mount, FAT and VFAT > file systems ignore the "sync" option. It lies.
I guess you found out the hard way that the vast majority of Linux docs are 2-3 years out of date...
> On a real hard > drive, this will cause "head resonances" as the heads go through > constant high speed seeks between the cylinder with the FAT tables and > the data cylinders. That can't be good, on a continuous basis, for > drive life. But it's really a disaster for flash memory.
I have seen a clueless sysadmin destroy several 15,000 RPM SCSI drives this way by putting the syslog partition and mail spool at opposite ends of the drive. I think Alan Cox said something like "these days you can no longer assume that buggy software won't destroy your hardware".
Lee
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