[Cialug] external hdd, laptop, clean unmounts

[Josh More]

In theory, you could modify the autofs config and add "sync" as a mount
option.

If I understand things correctly, one of the reasons that you get
corruption is that most filesystem writes are done asynchronously, and
when you power down without unmounting, all writes are not necessarily
performed in time.  Using "sync" overrides that default (which is
"async") and should give you improved data integrity at the cost of a
reduction in speed.

It is, however, not a magic bullet.  If you pull the cable while the
drive is updating inodes and the like, you will still have problems. 
Consider this a mitigation strategy only.


 

-Josh More, RHCE, CISSP, NCLP, GIAC 
 morej at alliancetechnologies.net 
 515-245-7701



>>> "Matthew Nuzum" <newz at bearfruit.org> 01/07/08 9:22 AM >>> 
I now have a USB hard drive for doing backups and storing less
frequently
used data. It needs to be plugged into the wall and for various reasons
I
don't want to carry it around with me whenever I want to work in
another
room/building.

Right now, my USB hub has my keyboard, mouse and laser printer plugged
into
it. The beauty is that none of those things complain if I just unplug
the
cord and walk away. I'd like to plug my hdd into the hub as well.

However, the hdd is not happy if I yank the cord and walk away. I get
the
nasty "Unsafe device removal" warning box and if I do it too many
times,
presumably I'll lose data too. I tend to move around a lot. Presumably
I'll
move around far more frequently than I'll use the ext hdd.

Anyone know a way to set things up so that I can just unhook without a
second thought?

 * Goal 1: Not loose data, assuming the light on the front of the drive
has
stopped blinking before I unplug
 * Goal 2 (optional): Not get the "unsafe device removal" warning

-- 
Matthew Nuzum
newz2000 on freenode