Re: Linux 2.6.29

[Linus Torvalds]

On Tue, 31 Mar 2009, Alan Cox wrote:
> 
> How about the far more regular crash case ? We may be pretty reliable but
> we are hardly indestructible especially on random boxes with funky BIOSes
> or low grade hardware builds.

The regular crash case doesn't need to care about the disk write-cache AT 
ALL. The disk will finish the writes on its own long after the kernel 
crashed.

That was my _point_. The write cache on the disk is generally a whole lot 
safer than the OS data cache. If there's a catastrophic software failure 
(outside of the disk firmware itself ;), then the OS data cache is gone. 
But the disk write cache will be written back.

Of course, if you have an automatic and immediate "power-off-on-oops", 
you're screwed, but if so, you have bigger problems anyway. You need to 
wait at _least_ a second or two before you power off.

		Linus
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