Simon Kirby wrote: >> On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 9:49 AM, Simon Kirby <sim@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >>> Not aborting on data write error: User loses data. File system gets very >>> confused. A *data* write error should not confuse the *filesystem* - it'll just be a corrupt file (assuming it was just an EIO / write failure and not some misdirected IO). >>> What am I missing? >> I can think of certain situations when companies may care about >> getting most of the data to disk and clean it up later. >> Datacenters may be replicating the data to many spindles and may >> sometimes care about throughput as much as possible. So lossy data >> could be preferred to complete data. >> >> Not saying this is always preferred but I can see a use case. > > Ok, fine, in this case they might know what they are doing. Still, this > is not reason enough to default the case in point... ? > > :) So one thing I have not seen clearly stated: When you got the initial write error that bothers you; was that for data or metadata? For a metadata write it should certainly not be ignored (other than for crazy people who run with errors=ignore) because this implies that the filesystem is no longer consistent. But for a data write error there is some grey area. If your application cares about data integrity then it'd be doing direct IO or syncing data and checking for errors; if it's doing buffered writes and carrying on blindly assuming that everything is sweetness and light, well, that's the application's choice. But assuming the entire filesystem should implode on one file's data write failure is probably not the best plan. FWIW, Part of the reason for the defaults as they are, IIRC, is to keep the current/historical behavior, but with an option to be more strict for those who wish it. As you do. :) -Eric (coming off a long vacation and hoping he's remembering this all correctly) :) -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-ext4" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
