Re: Should raw I/O be added to the kernel?

yodaiken@chelm.cs.nmt.edu
Mon, 21 Dec 1998 07:12:48 -0700

On Sun, Dec 20, 1998 at 10:56:48PM -0800, Ronald Cole wrote:
> Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com> writes:
> >The only argument for raw disk IO is the caching policy issue
>
> Exactly right. Without raw disk IO, you couldn't guarantee a database
> to always be in a consistent state on the disk (i.e. it isn't very
> desirable to have a committed transaction in a cache when the pc loses
> power). It makes it impossible to recover the database. And what

So you better not use any drive or controller that does any buffering or
reordering. Don't confuse mechanism and policy.

---------------------------------
Victor Yodaiken
Department of Computer Science
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology
Socorro NM 87801
Homepage http://www.cs.nmt.edu/~yodaiken
PowerPC Linux page http://linuxppc.cs.nmt.edu
Real-Time Page http://rtlinux.org

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