From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list xfs); Mon, 11 Feb 2008 08:46:18 -0800 (PST) Received: from cuda.sgi.com (cuda1.sgi.com [192.48.168.28]) by oss.sgi.com (8.12.11.20060308/8.12.11/SuSE Linux 0.7) with ESMTP id m1BGk9Qu026003 for ; Mon, 11 Feb 2008 08:46:11 -0800 Received: from out4.smtp.messagingengine.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by cuda.sgi.com (Spam Firewall) with ESMTP id C3D67DE165E for ; Mon, 11 Feb 2008 08:46:33 -0800 (PST) Received: from out4.smtp.messagingengine.com (out4.smtp.messagingengine.com [66.111.4.28]) by cuda.sgi.com with ESMTP id FD304JH0CRMSQPvU for ; Mon, 11 Feb 2008 08:46:33 -0800 (PST) Received: from compute1.internal (compute1.internal [10.202.2.41]) by out1.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id A4AEB8834C for ; Mon, 11 Feb 2008 11:46:29 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <1202748389.28320.1236240801@webmail.messagingengine.com> From: "Felix E. Klee" Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: Data safety horror stories? Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:46:29 +0100 Sender: xfs-bounce@oss.sgi.com Errors-to: xfs-bounce@oss.sgi.com List-Id: xfs To: xfs-oss I heard that, in case of a power failure, XFS may lose data, even data that was already existing on the disk. For example, I heard horror stories of files being overwritten with zeros. Are those stories true? If so: * Do you recommend not using XFS on devices that may frequently fail due to power failure? * Is it possible to find out what files have been damaged? If not, will only files be affected that have been changed during the last couple of hours? * Are there options to increase data safety? Should one run a regular "sync" in a cron job? * Is it unsafe to use XFS in a virtual machine which may sometimes be terminated without proper shutdown? Suppose the virtual machine is running under Windows, and Windows may sometimes be terminated without proper shutdown. I currently am using XFS under Ubuntu 7.10 (Kernel 2.6.22), running in a virtual machine (VMware) under Windows. The XFS file system is in a native partition on a second HDD. -- Felix E. Klee Jabber/Google Talk: feklee@jabber.org, SIP: 9779619@sipgate.de ICQ: 158124695, Yahoo!: feklee, AIM: felix.klee@inka.de Gizmo: felixklee, Skype: felix.klee