From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S263829AbTDIVYZ (for ); Wed, 9 Apr 2003 17:24:25 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S263831AbTDIVYZ (for ); Wed, 9 Apr 2003 17:24:25 -0400 Received: from [66.186.193.1] ([66.186.193.1]:30731 "HELO unix113.hosting-network.com") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S263829AbTDIVYY (for ); Wed, 9 Apr 2003 17:24:24 -0400 X-Comments: BlackMail headers - Mail to abuse@featureprice.com to report spam. X-Authenticated-Connect: 63.109.146.2 X-Authenticated-Timestamp: 17:40:03(EDT) on April 09, 2003 X-HELO-From: [10.134.0.76] X-Mail-From: X-Sender-IP-Address: 63.109.146.2 Subject: RE: questions regarding Journalling-FSes and w-cache reordering From: Torrey Hoffman To: Alan Cox Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List , "'Oliver S.'" In-Reply-To: <1049919134.10871.5.camel@dhcp22.swansea.linux.org.uk> References: <785F348679A4D5119A0C009027DE33C102E0D0B1@mcoexc04.mlm.maxtor.com> <1049919134.10871.5.camel@dhcp22.swansea.linux.org.uk> Content-Type: text/plain Organization: Message-Id: <1049924154.5404.26.camel@torrey.et.myrio.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Ximian Evolution 1.2.2 (1.2.2-5) Date: 09 Apr 2003 14:35:55 -0700 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Wed, 2003-04-09 at 13:12, Alan Cox wrote: > On Mer, 2003-04-09 at 20:52, Mudama, Eric wrote: > > ATA hard drives are allowed to reorder/merge/etc their write caches if write > > cache is enabled. With write caching enabled, there is no guarantee that > > dirty data will be flushed in any specific order, nor does the ATA protocol > > support any such ordering beyond the global flush cache command. > > To cheer people up further by the way, not all ATA drives support cache > flush, some drives dont support write cache disable and others implement > write/verify as write. Can anyone recommend some decent 120 GB or larger IDE drives which don't play these games? I'd like to build a reliable ~1 TB RAID 5 from IDE drives. I will gladly give up performance for high reliability and low cost. My current 240 GB RAID 5 is built from five 60 GB Maxtor IDEs, with a Reiser FS on it. I use hdparm to disable write cache... unless Maxtor ignores that? Does anyone know? I can check the exact model numbers of the drives if it matters. Is there documentation anywhere that says which drives cut corners? Any other suggestions on how to build a cheap but reliable RAID? Thanks in advance, -- Torrey Hoffman