Re: o_sync in vfat driver

[Arjan van de Ven <arjan@infradead.org>]

On Mon, 2006-02-27 at 14:06 +0000, Anton Altaparmakov wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-02-27 at 14:50 +0100, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> > On Mon, 2006-02-27 at 08:28 -0500, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> > > On Sun, Feb 26, 2006 at 11:50:40PM +0100, col-pepper@piments.com wrote:
> > > > Hi,
> > > > 
> > > > OMG what do I have to do to post here? 10th attempt.
> > > > {part2}
> > > > 
> > > > Here is a non-exhaustive list of typical devices types requiring fat vfat
> > > > support:
> > > > 
> > > > fd ide-hd scsi-hd usb-hd cdrom usb-hd usb-handheld (iPod, iRiver etc)
> > > > usb-flash (usbsticks, cameras, some music devices.)
> > > > 
> > > > IIRC the sync mount option for vfat is ignored for file systems >2G, this
> > > > effectively (and probably intentionally) excludes nearly all hd partitions
> > > > and iPod type devices.
> > > 
> > > I think many people wish it was ignored on smaller devices too given
> > > what it does to write performance.
> > 
> > well. If you don't want it *DO NOT USE IT AT THE MOUNT COMMAND LINE* !!!
> 
> That is easy to say when you are using the command line...  Modern
> distros (as you know I am sure) mount all hot-plug devices like usb
> keys, usb hard disks, etc automatically at plug-in time and at least
> some distros use "-o sync"

that is a bad misdesign of that distro or at least the tool the distro
uses for this (I don't know which it is so I can say that without
sounding partial :)

the tool that decides to use "sync", or at least the author thereof,
should be aware of what flash is, and that it has a limited lifespan etc
etc, and that you thus want maximum caching etc.



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