Re: Write cache on SATA drives?

[Matthias Andree <matthias.andree@gmx.de>]

Jens Axboe <axboe@suse.de> writes:

> On Thu, Jun 30 2005, Edwards, Scott (GE Healthcare) wrote:
>> Hello,
>> 
>> Can anyone tell me if the write cache on SATA drives are handled such
>> that journaling file systems work correctly?  Back in the 2.6.5 -
>> 2.6.7 time frame I had to disable the write cache to get ext3 to not
>> trash things when the power was lost.  With kernel 2.6.10 would I
>> still need to disable the write cache?
>
> With 2.6.12.x it should work, if you use ext3 or reiser and the
> appropriate mount options (-o barrier=1 for ext3, barrier=flush for
> reiserfs). 2.6.11 and earlier does not work on SATA.

I presume this means "libata" exclusively, no?

Which is the oldest version where this works

1. for SCSI (perhaps by adaptor)?

2. for traditional IDE (such as VIA 82*, PIIX_*)?

3. for RAID?

4. for XFS or JFS?

I have started to compile a list of requirements,
<http://home.pages.de/~mandree/linux/kernel/safe-write-caches.html>

Contributions solicited.

-- 
Matthias Andree