question about possibility of data loss in Ext2/3 file system

From: Xin Zhao
Date: Wed Feb 22 2006 - 16:54:52 EST


As far as I know, in Ext2/3 file system, data blocks to be flushed to
disk are usually marked as dirty and wait for kernel thread to flush
them lazily. So data blocks of a file could be flushed even after this
file is closed.

Now consider this scenario: suppose data block 2,3 and 4 of file A are
marked to be flushed out. At time T1, block 2 and 3 are flushed, and
file A is closed. However, at time T2, system experiences power outage
and failed to flushed block 4. Does that mean we will end up with
getting a partially flushed file? Is there any way to provide better
guarantee on file integrity?
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