*BSD News Article 88539


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From: j@ida.interface-business.de (J Wunsch)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.misc
Subject: Re: Linux vs BSD
Date: 7 Feb 1997 17:22:14 GMT
Organization: interface business GmbH, Dresden
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Reply-To: joerg_wunsch@interface-business.de (Joerg Wunsch)
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Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.advocacy:82710 comp.unix.bsd.misc:2334

paul@dutch.eng.ox.ac.uk (Paul D Thomas) wrote:

> The reason we have async writes in linux (metadata gets written more
> regularly, though) is that it is faster and *reliable*.

The reason we have async metadata updates in FreeBSD (data updates
are always async, mind you) is that it is faster and *reliable*.

:-)

> I have never seen corruption of the filesystem which can't be repaired
> by fsck.

``Absense of evidence is no evidence of absence.'' (Not by me.)

Sure, there are only rare occasions where it crashes, but even the
potential possibility that it will cause more damage in the case of a
crash is reason enough for us to not make it the default.  Note,
that's the only difference: it's not the default, but an option.

I run some of my less important filesystems with async metadata
updates myself, and sure, i also have yet to see a serious corruption,
despite of it being a development box that can sometimes also crash
during kernel development.

But pray, let's not start this whole argumentation war again.  We do
have different opinions about the safety vs. performance tradeoffs
here, and neither side will likely change their position in this.

-- 
J"org Wunsch					       Unix support engineer
joerg_wunsch@interface-business.de       http://www.interface-business.de/~j