[Asterisk-Users] Hard drive write cache

[Mike Fedyk]

shadowym wrote:
> Any other recommendations/links for increasing the reliability of Asterisk
> servers?
Separate the various use cases of the filesystem into different volumes 
with LVM.  The parts that are not written to except during upgrades like 
/usr should be mounted read-only, and the various read/write sections 
like /var/spool/asterisk and /var/log should be on separate volumes also.

This keeps any corruption experienced localized to a small area, and 
keeps your binaries unquestionably safe from a power outage and the only 
step needed is automated detection and cleanup of the read/write volumes.

Write barriers allow you to keep write-cache turned on in the drives, 
and sends a command to the drive to reply when the data hits the 
platters.  Also if the drive doesn't support that, various techniques 
are used to verify the data is on the media and not in drive cache.  
Contact your distro support company and ask them if write-barriers have 
been implemented in the drivers for the drive controllers you are using, 
and if not, then either buy the hardware that does support that or 
sponsor them to update the driver to support write-barriers.

Also contact your distro support company to see if they have any 
recommendations for the setup you want.

Mike