Message-ID: <43CF90C6.8050505@fastmail.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 21:14:46 +0800
From: Max Waterman <davidmaxwaterman+kernel@fastmail.co.uk>
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To: Robert Hancock <hancockr@shaw.ca>
CC: linux-kernel <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: io performance...
References: <5vx8f-1Al-21@gated-at.bofh.it> <5wbRY-3cF-3@gated-at.bofh.it> <5wdKh-5wF-15@gated-at.bofh.it> <43CEF263.9060102@shaw.ca>
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Robert Hancock wrote:
> Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>> Max Waterman wrote:
>>
>>> One further question. I get these messages 'in' dmesg :
>>>
>>> sda: asking for cache data failed
>>> sda: assuming drive cache: write through
>>>
>>> How can I force it to be 'write back'?
>>
>> Forcing write back is a very bad idea unless you have a battery backed 
>> up RAID controller.  
> 
> This is not what these messages are referring to. Those write through 
> vs. write back messages are referring to detecting the drive write cache 
> mode, not setting it. Whether or not the write cache is enabled is used 
> to determine whether the sd driver uses SYNCHRONIZE CACHE commands to 
> flush the write cache on the device. If the drive says its write cache 
> is off or doesn't support determining the cache status, the kernel will 
> not issue SYNCHRONIZE CACHE commands. This may be a bad thing if the 
> device is really using write caching..
>     

So, if I have my raid controller set to use write-back, it *is* caching 
the writes, and so this *is* a bad thing, right?

If so, how to fix?

Max.
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