Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 18:48:00 -0400 From: Chuck Swiger <cswiger@mac.com> To: Matthias Buelow <mkb@incubus.de> Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Sysinstall automatic filesystem size generation. Message-ID: <431390A0.5080007@mac.com> In-Reply-To: <20050829215613.GD1462@drjekyll.mkbuelow.net> References: <20050829120415.GA1462@drjekyll.mkbuelow.net> <200508291836.j7TIaVEk013147@gw.catspoiler.org> <20050829185933.GB1462@drjekyll.mkbuelow.net> <431362ED.9030800@mac.com> <20050829204714.GC1462@drjekyll.mkbuelow.net> <43137AFB.9060304@mac.com> <20050829215613.GD1462@drjekyll.mkbuelow.net>
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Matthias Buelow wrote: > Chuck Swiger wrote: >> Yet you seem willing to spend time discussing the matter...? > > Because it's somewhat of my pet peeve and I always see the mantra-like > repetition of the argument that "you have to disable the write-back > cache if you want any safety at all", No, there are other possible solutions which have been mentioned. I reiterate my question: have you tried adjusting the syncer sysctl's and seeing whether FreeBSD is more stable in the event of a power failure? [ ... ] >>>One often sees the "softupdates" argument being fielded by FreeBSD >>>advocates, typically against Linux users with journalled fs, on web >>>forums, usenet and other less authoritative (and knowledgable) >>>places of discussion, and it is often presented as if it were some >>>kind of magic bullet that makes filesystem corruption impossible. >> >>"Often?" Strawman test: can you point out 3 examples by message-id or URL? > > A Google search finds them quickly: > > http://www.heise.de/ix/foren/go.shtml?read=1&msg_id=7335045&forum_id=70615 > (german, argument is that "softupdates is at least a match for a > journalled fs"), > > http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2003-June/009967.html > ("FS + SoftUpdates is much better than journaling!") > > http://aussatz.antville.org/topics/HowTos/ > (german, argument is "1. practically nothing can break when power > goes out", and even that you can switch off the machine without any > problems, except for losing the files that have been written to in > the last seconds. Of course no mentioning of disk cache or any > sophistication whatever.) Conclusion: if you're looking for unbridled FreeBSD advocacy on these lists or in the FreeBSD documentation, you've found very little. A one-line post from 2003: gosh, someone expressed a strong opinion, and even that was promptly followed up with: > FFS+SU does have the disadvantages that a full fsck is still needed > (run in the background), and you risk losing the last `sysctl > kern.metadelay` seconds worth of files written just before a crash. ...by Dan Nelson. I'm going to skip the rest of the monologue and the Dubai Nad al-Sheba golf club as well, but thanks anyway. -- -Chuck
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