Re: [PATCH v4] drivers/block/mtip32xx: Adding new driver mtip32xx

[Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org>]

On Fri, Sep 09, 2011 at 10:58:01AM +0200, Jens Axboe wrote:
> >  - handling of REQ_FUA / REQ_FLUSH requests is completely broken.
> >    There is a weird barrier flag to mtip_hw_submit_io which set the
> >    hwardware FUA bit if the FLUSH bit is set on a request.
> >    Please take a look at how this should be handled, the
> >    Documentation/block/writeback_cache_control.txt file is the canonical
> >    resource.  Implementing your driver at the make_request layer
> >    unfortunately means you will have to do all the hard work yourself.
> 
> I noticed both of these flush/fua problems too and have fixed them up.

I sitll can't find anything doing that in your tree while all kinds of
other patches are in.  In fact I can't find a place that sends
ATA_CMD_FLUSH/ATA_CMD_FLUSH_EXT commands, not the required queue
draining for it.

And this stuff really makes me nervous - we get a driver for a new,
expensive high end device and there seems absolutely no concern for
data integrity, or testing of it.

Or does the device not even have a volatile cache at all, and we could
just remove the FUA code?  In this case it should be clearly documented
in the driver.