Yep. Almost all operating systems have a bufor that tell programs file was moved when it is still in the process. It makes perfect sense, it speed things up and extends the lifespan of the device.
You can flush that bufor manually with just the sync command or disable it for whole partition with -o sync option. Technically you should unmount drives before unplugging for safety anyway, but people are stupid or more important lazy and in my opinion for external devices mounting with sync really should be the default. Maybe some low-level developer would disagree.
TRUE!!! Why “user friendly” distros does not mount removable drives with sync option by default is beyond me.
Hang on there is a sync option? Does that make the progressbar work? If so why is it not enabled?
Yep. Almost all operating systems have a bufor that tell programs file was moved when it is still in the process. It makes perfect sense, it speed things up and extends the lifespan of the device.
You can flush that bufor manually with just the
sync
command or disable it for whole partition with-o sync
option. Technically you should unmount drives before unplugging for safety anyway, but people are stupid or more important lazy and in my opinion for external devices mounting with sync really should be the default. Maybe some low-level developer would disagree.I’m very confused by this thread.
Progress bars are handled by the applications themselves, whether flushing happens or not;
immediate flushing does not increase storage lifespan, in fact letting the OS decide when to do it may allow wear-leveling to work better.
(Though, IMO immediate flushing should be the default for removable media on user-friendly distributions, like swap partitions are)
Yes, but OS must tell the application how much of the operation is done
I was trying to say the opposite. Caching/buffering is what longers the lifespan and can speed system up