Running fsck before mounting removable media

[kitts]

On Sunday 22 Apr 2007 6:44:37 pm Danny Kukawka wrote:
> On Sonntag, 22. April 2007, kitts wrote:
> > I use a USB hard drive to backup my system. Everyonce in a while i have
> > to run fsck on its 2 partitions for reliability.
> >
> > Instead, i would like fsck to be run automatically everytime i plug it
> > in. If the filesystem needs a check it will be done. I see no harm in
> > running it by default on all mounts.
>
> No, it isn't a good idea to run a fsck check on every plugin time. This is
> in the most cases not needed and the most user don't like to get a fsck
> check every time they plugin their USB harddisk or USB-stick, at least not
> if you have a big disk and a journaling filesystem. If you always umount
> the partition correctly there is no need to run always fsck.

If the filesystem is clean fsck would return immediately saying it is clean. 
This would operate in much the same way as an internal drive would. If the 
user does not want the check the max mount count can be zero.

This not a great need with respect to flash drives but there are increasing 
number of external hard drives out there that are powered by a separate power 
source and it certainly is possible that the drive not cleanly unmounted 
during a power interruption.
-- 
Cheers!
kitts