I'm using the O_DIRECT flag to write to the disk directly from the user buffer. But as far as I understand, Linux doesn't guarantee that after this call, the data is written. It just writes directly from the user buffer to the physical device using DMA or anything else... Therefore, I don't understand if I can write to the user buffer after the call to 'write' function. I'm sure that example code will help to understand my question: char *user_buff = malloc(...); /* assume it is aligned as needed */ fd = open(..., O_DIRECT); write(fd, ...) memset(user_buff, 0, ...) Is the last line (memset) legal? Is writing to the user buffer valid that is maybe used by DMA to transfer data to the device?