Best mount options for external USB ext3 disk drive

[Mikkel L. Ellertson]

Chris Jones wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have an external USB ext3 disk drive. Everything is working fine, I plug it 
> in an an icon appears on my (KDE) desktop, which I can use to mount and 
> unmount the device.
> 
> However, I have noticed that writing to the device the behaviour is rather 
> different to my main system disks. It appears not much caching is going on - 
> On the main system when creating a large file, the writes a done in big bulks 
> every now and then, whereas on this disk it is continuous low level activity.
> 
> I'm wondering if this is normal for a USB disk, or are there options I can 
> teak somewhere to get better mounting ? 
> 
By default, USB hard drives are mounted using the sync option. This
turns off write caching when writing to the drive. I believe that
this is done to limit data loss in case the drive gets unplugged.
The delay whey you go to unmount the drive without this option can
be long enough that people think there is a problem, and do not wait
long enough before unplugging the drive.

If you normally have the drive connected, you can create a ftab
entry for the drive and use your own options. You could also write a
special HAL rule for this drive.

Mikkel
-- 

  Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!