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Cape

Member

From: Mogliano Veneto, Italy

Registered: 2008-11-15

Posts: 105

Gnome Disk Utility: enable "Write Cache" ?!

Hello everyone!
i've just noticed an option in Gnome Disk Utility Utility (under Drive Settings) were you can enable/disable write cache. Seems sweet but i'd like to understand the inner workings before tinkering with it
What does it actually do? Is it just a frontend to hdparm? Also, i've noticed a dialog where you can choose the disk standby timeout: again, is that a frontend for the hdparm "-S" option?

nstgc

Member

Registered: 2014-03-17

Posts: 393

Re: Gnome Disk Utility: enable "Write Cache" ?!

Disk writes are written to buffer on the disk itself. While a kernel panic shouldn't cause it to become corrupt (which can happen when writes are cached in RAM), it still leaves you vulnerable to data corruption due to power loss. If you have a UPS, you an safely enable it for a bit of a speed up.

Spider.007

Member

Registered: 2004-06-20

Posts: 1,176

Re: Gnome Disk Utility: enable "Write Cache" ?!

I don't know if it is really a 'frontend' but I'm sure they toggle the same switch internally

Cape

Member

From: Mogliano Veneto, Italy

Registered: 2008-11-15

Posts: 105

Re: Gnome Disk Utility: enable "Write Cache" ?!

Nice, thanks for the reply!
See, i think we need more applications like this one: clean, informative and with all the needed functionalities covered.

Let's just hope gnome developers don't try to "update" it like they usually do (removing core functionality/adding tablet crap).