I don't think you quite follow that there's a good amount of difference between the don't check option and what ext3 provides. Even if you do, it's worth pointing out in more detail.

The normal filesystem, ext2, keeps a log of how many times it's been mounted. Once it reaches a certain number, it ``requests'' that it be checked on the assumption that it might have become corrupted without it noticing. For many applications, the empeg included, this is useless. The don't check option turns this off, so you won't get the occasional slow empeg start.

Ext3, on the other hand, is a journalling filesystem. This means that every time a change is made to the filesystem, a log is written that says the filesystem is about to be modified, then the change is made, then the log is erased. (I'm sure that this is not totally accurate, but it's generally the idea.) The benefit of this is that if the filesystem is forcibly unmounted, as from the power being removed, the filesystem driver can see if there are any logs that weren't erased. If there were, then it can find the partial change and back it out. (Again, probably not quite accurate.) This means that filesystem checks needn't be performed at all. Mostly. Of course, in order for changes to occur, the filesystem must be mounted read-write, and the filesystem driver for both filesystems understands this, so it's never checked due to a forcible unmount of a read-only filesystem.

Since, for non-hackers, the empeg's filesystems are only mounted read-write when syncs are being performed, this occurs fairly seldom -- only when the power is removed during a sync, or crashes. But they can happen.

But you're right that it's much more likely to help a hacker-type. But, IMHO, what would be more likely to help is just to remember to unmount the filesystems cleanly.