From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Hans Reiser Subject: Re: FEATURE Req: integrate badblocks check into fsck.reiser* Date: Tue, 05 Sep 2006 17:53:24 -0700 Message-ID: <44FE1C04.70800@namesys.com> References: <200609012250.44548.vs@namesys.com> <44F8B3C8.1050802@slaphack.com> <44F8BE78.1080503@slaphack.com> <44FB925E.2000300@emc.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: list-help: list-unsubscribe: list-post: Errors-To: flx@namesys.com In-Reply-To: <44FB925E.2000300@emc.com> List-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: Ric Wheeler Cc: David Masover , Peter , reiserfs-list@namesys.com Ric Wheeler wrote: > > > David Masover wrote: > >> Peter wrote: >> >>> On Fri, 01 Sep 2006 17:27:20 -0500, David Masover wrote: >>> snip... >>> >>>>> both mkfs.reiserfs and fsck.reiserfs have -B option to accept list of >>>>> bad blocks. We thought that should be enough. >>>> >>>> It really should. Why bother with a patch? Just write a wrapper >>>> script >>>> that runs badblocks and passes in the list to mkfs. >>> >>> >>> It was just a thought from userland. My perspective was that a user, >>> not a >>> hard-boiled geek, might get lulled into a false sense of security >>> but may >>> not have the wherewithal to write a wrapper. If nothing else, when the >>> final doc is written (did I say final?:)), it should include a notice >>> about not running badblocks. >> >> >> Well, let's see... Most hard drives come more thoroughly tested at >> the factory than anything badblocks would do. Also, it seems >> redundant to have every single mkfs have to implement a badblocks flag.. >> >> I'd suggest a universal wrapper, then, or a modification to the >> "mkfs" frontend, so that this works the same way across all >> filesystems. Something like "mkfs -B -t reiser4" > > > I don't think that modern drives that fail writes are worth using for > a brand new file system. > > While failing reads is quite common and can be caused by temporal > issues (dirt on the platter, a bad write, etc), failed writes are > almost always a sign that you have a serious issue. Almost all modern > drives remap each failed write to a bad sector automatically. This > action only fails if you have exhausted this remapping area (or have > some really nasty issue like a bad cable, bad write head, etc). > > Having mkfs ignore bad writes would seem to encourage users to create > a new file system on a disk that is known to be bad & most likely not > going to function well. If a user ever has a golden opportunity to > toss a drive in the trash, it is when they notice mkfs fails ;-) This > option to mkfs sounds like an invitation to disaster. Yes, you are right, the option should be to run badblocks and then fail if it finds any. > > The other tools (debugreiserfs, reiserfsck, etc) do need to be able to > handle bad blocks as well as possible since they are often needed > during a salvage operation. in order to recover data (which might need > to be migrated to a new disk). It is not clear to me that passing a > list of bad blocks helps them as much as a robust general purpose > error recovery support. > > > > > > > >