Comment by throwawaylinux

> There is a point at which a redundant array of inexpensive and unreliable replicas is more durable than a single drive. Even N in-memory databases spread across the world is more durable than a single one with fsync.

Unless a failure mode you are concerned about include being cut off from the internet, or your system isn't network connected in the first place, in which case maybe not eh?

Anyway surely the point is clear. "Durable" doesn't mean "durable according to the whims of some anonymous denizen of the other side of the internet who is imagining a scenario which is completely irrelevant to what I'm actually doing with my data".

It means that the data is flushed to what your system considers to be durable storage.

Also hardware failures and software bugs can exist. You can talk about durable storage without being some kind of cosmic-ray-denier or anti-backup cultist.