Re: [PATCH 2/2] block: create ioctl to discard-or-zeroout a range of blocks

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"Linus" == Linus Torvalds [off-list ref] writes:

Linus> On Thu, Mar 3, 2016 at 9:02 AM, Theodore Ts'o [off-list ref] wrote:

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There is a massive bug in the SATA specs about trim, which is that it
is considered advisory.  So the storage device can throw it away
whenever it feels like it.  (In practice, when it's too busy doing
other things).

Linus> Ugh.

SCSI UNMAP provides similar semantics :(

Linus> But that essentially says that we shouldn't expose this interface
Linus> at all (unless we trust our white-lists - I'm sure they are
Linus> getting better, but if nobody has ever really _relied_ on the
Linus> zeroing behavior of trim, then I guess there could be tons of
Linus> bugs lurking).

We started out with the blacklist approach and it blew up. So now we're
down to a whitelist of drives that have been sanctioned by their
manufacturers to do the right thing.

Occasionally a new SSD model messes things up but we haven't updated it
since last summer. The drive vendors are much better at testing using
Linux than they used to be.

-- 
Martin K. Petersen	Oracle Linux Engineering