noatime
also: no-atime
A mount option that prevents the filesystem from updating the access time (atime) of files when they are read, improving performance by reducing disk writes.
noatime is a mount option that disables automatic updating of the access time metadata for files and directories. Normally, every time a file is read, the filesystem updates its atime field to record when it was last accessed. This requires a disk write operation even for read-only access.
By mounting a filesystem with noatime, you eliminate these metadata writes, resulting in faster file access and reduced disk I/O. For example: mount -o noatime /dev/sda1 /mnt or in /etc/fstab: /dev/sda1 /home ext4 noatime 0 2
The tradeoff is that tools relying on atime (like finding unused files or email clients checking new messages) may not work correctly. A middle ground is relatime, which updates atime only if it's older than the modification time or more than 24 hours old.