the following is the actual default text appearing in the configuration options: #: src/prefs_other.c:515 msgid "" "Safer mode asks the OS to write metadata to disk directly;\n" "it avoids data loss after crashes but can take some time." #: src/prefs_other.c:519 msgid "Safer" #: src/prefs_other.c:521 msgid "Faster" when you know what metadata is you may figure out what is being meant, but even so rest some doubt because it sounds ambigous my point is, writing directly is supposed to be faster, naturally, but the option is called SAFER, it is a little bit confusing isn't it? then it says it can take some time, so here comes my technical doubt. When using OS's write-to-disk mechanism then safer is the slower mode but it does not write directly. When short-cutting the write-to-disk method, then it is faster but may not be safe since the metadata gets updated later, right? Could you please clarify for me which option in fact does what? I suppose that SAFER means not direct write and FASTER means direct write. So IMO the description is not exactly correct.
The "Safer" option causes lot of fsync() calls to make sure everything in filesystem cache is really written to storage as soon as possible. This can cause performance degradation (disk thrashing) on some setups, as compared to "Faster" option, which is arguably less safe, but leaves the filesystem synchronization to underlying OS. Usefulness of manual fsync() calls has been a hotly debated topic few years back, therefore this config option has been implemented, so user can decide for themselves.
this is a bug tracker, use the mailing list for questions
ok, means that the options are correct once again I now was bitten another translation error (pt_BR) the pt_BR is "immediate write to disk" instead of "direct write to disk", what then rises the questions I made thanks for clarification