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To: redhat-list@listman.redhat.com From: David Hollister <david.hollister@cox.net> Subject: Re: what is raw device? Date: 26 Mar 2003 08:59:17 -0700 On Wed, 2003-03-26 at 08:46, Jianping Zhu wrote: > raw device refer to file (/dev/ha0) system or hard ware like floppy ? There are two ways to access a device (hard drive, floppy, CD-ROM, what have you). One is the standard method, which uses block devices. The other method for accessing these devices is via the raw device interface. You're accessing the same hardware, but the raw device bypasses the file system's buffer cache and gives you "direct" access to the device. This can be very convenient for particular purposes, but you need to be careful if you ever intend to mix block and raw accesses to the same device. === To: redhat-list@listman.redhat.com From: Ben Russo <Ben@umialumni.com> Subject: Re: what is raw device? Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 11:05:16 -0500 Jianping Zhu wrote: >raw device refer to file (/dev/ha0) system or hard ware like floppy ? > > Some applications like to have raw access to a block device. (e.g. no file system, no VFS layer) (Oracle comes to mind). the rawdevices system init file set's up devices so that Oracle can access raw block storage devices. ===