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How to corrupt - windows
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Wanted to pick up on a statement Keith's responses didn't cover:

> Here I'm assuming that cheap hardware didn't lie to Windows in the first place.

The opposite is true.  Cheap storage systems have fudges in to appear fast without using expensive fast components.  One of these is that they will accept a 'write' instruction and say "Okay, I've got that." to Windows before they've written the new data to storage.  This lets the manufacturer quote a fast write time on the specs.  If power fails at that point, the new data is lost.  And if several 'writes' are buffered, they may be executed out of order.  If a DBMS is relying on ACID, it will be broken.

Expensive storage subsystems, sold for use in servers, (adverts say things like "ACID, 24/7, in-order writing" do this properly.  That's why they're expensive: they need additional hardware to meet the claims they quote.

In other words, cheap hardware is exactly the hardware which will lie to Windows.  Truth costs money.