filesystem information

[Jim]

> In case of frequent power outages, I guess the right answer is "get a
> UPS". :)

Aye, I just got one. But for the longest time, it was a bit out of my
price range due to other priorities. Actually, the whole model line
was defective, so they are sending me a new one, and I have to wait
for it to arrive.

> Without a UPS nothing can protect you against power outages. Even when
> running the filesystem with the sync flag and setting ATA devices to
> write-through the cache cannot guarantee you won't lose data. If the
> power fails when a write is in progress, you're screwed.

I'm aware of nothing but a UPS can completely protect me from an
outage. I was just wondering why that ONE file system was misbehaving,
and the rest are prefectly fine - which seemed odd. Additionally, why
were files that are read, but not written, being lost? I can
understand losing files that are being written, but if there's a file
that has bene written several restarts ago, not written to thereafter,
and has been fine ever since, why is it being lost now?