From owner-freebsd-hardware Wed Oct 17 8:35:21 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Received: from smx.pair.com (smx.pair.com [209.68.1.56]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id C002537B401 for ; Wed, 17 Oct 2001 08:35:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 62504 invoked by uid 1004); 17 Oct 2001 15:35:16 -0000 Message-ID: <20011017153516.62503.qmail@smx.pair.com> From: carter@pair.com Subject: soft updates, write cache To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 11:35:16 -0400 (EDT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL40 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Hello, I'm a bit unclear on the interactions of soft-updates and drive write cache. I hear one should disable the write cache on IDE/ATA drives when using soft-updates. However, I am unsure if this is something I can set with sysctl, or must use a utility from the drive manufacturer. I run 4.1.1 currently, and hw.ata.wc is not listed as a known oid with sysctl. As well, 5.x I understand will enable soft-updates by default. Should I trust that write caching is correctly disabled, or worry that my IDE device controlls this with its own BIOS? IBM for example, offers a separate tool to change the drive features. Thanks, Chris Carter To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message