Hi! > > > +* don't damage the old data on a failed write (ATOMIC-WRITES) > > > + > > > + (Thrash may get written into sectors during powerfail. And > > > + ext3 handles this surprisingly well at least in the > > > + catastrophic case of garbage getting written into the inode > > > + table, since the journal replay often will "repair" the > > > + garbage that was written into the filesystem metadata blocks. > > > > Isn't this by design? In other words, if the metadata doesn't survive > > non-atomic writes, wouldn't it be an ext3 bug? > > So I got confused when I quoted your note, which I had assumed was > exactly what Pavel had written in his documentation. In fact, what he > had written was this: > > +Don't damage the old data on a failed write (ATOMIC-WRITES) > +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > + > +Either whole sector is correctly written or nothing is written during > +powerfail. > + > +.... > > So he had explicitly stated that he only cared about the whole sector > being written (or not written) in the power fail case, and not any > other. I'd suggest changing ATOMIC-WRITES to > ATOMIC-WRITE-ON-POWERFAIL, since the one-line summary, "Don't damage > the old data on a failed write", is also singularly misleading. Ok, something like this? Don't damage the old data on a powerfail (ATOMIC-WRITES-ON-POWERFAIL) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Either whole sector is correctly written or nothing is written during powerfail. Pavel -- (english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek (cesky, pictures) http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/picture/horses/blog.html -- 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
