Synchronous updates on ext3?

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Wed, 28 Aug 2002, Christopher Smith wrote:
> >and I have also checked Gentoo's ebuild script for cyrus-imapd and they
> >force synchronous updates on both ext2 _and_ ext3. Is it really okay to
> >use ext3 without synchronous updates or should I change my rpms?

It is OK to use ext3 without synchronous updates, as long as your ext3 is
not buggy.  It is even better to do so using the data=journal mode, but that
one is buggy at least in 2.4.18 and will crash your kernel.  data=journal is
supposed to be faster for mail (but no more, nor less secure) than the
default data=ordered mode.

Don't try to second-guess the user. If anyone is dumb enough to enable
data=writeback in ext3, he deserves what he gets.

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh