[$] Ext4 data corruption hits the stable kernels The kernel's stable-update process is intended to produce kernels that are, well, stable; when that promise is lived up to, users can update to newer stable updates without fear. By any account, a bug that corrupts data on ext4 filesystems constitutes a failure to hold to that promise. As is so often the case, this problem is the result of a chain of failures in a system that works well most of the time. https://lwn.net/Articles/954770/