Disabling write-behind on IDE drives, and SMART

[Mike Tancsa]

At 04:39 PM 20/01/2005, Jim C. Nasby wrote:
>Question one: how do I disable write caching on IDE drives? I know the
>setting is hw.ata.wc=0, but where do I put that? In loader.conf? This is
>FreeBSD 4.10, btw.

Yes, you can put it in there.

>Also, has any thought been given to making the default 0, like it is for
>SCSI devices? I'm honestly surprised and disappointed that the default
>is speed over data integrity.

It has been discussed quite a bit before and for a number of reasons, the 
default on was chosen.  (google if you want to see the various reasons)



>Question two: is there any support for SMART in FreeBSD?

RELENG_5 with /usr/ports/sysutils/smartmontools/ works really well.  But 
you need to move to RELENG_5.


         ---Mike