Crash Consistency
The property that persistent state still obeys defined data and metadata invariants after an unexpected system stop.
Crash consistency asks what remains on persistent storage after power loss, a kernel failure, or another abrupt stop. The failure mode is not limited to missing bytes; new data combined with stale metadata, or the reverse, can leave a structurally invalid state.
For file publication, the order of temporary-file writes, fsync(), rename(), and directory synchronization matters. Atomic publication in file processing is a practical example of why atomic visibility and crash consistency are separate guarantees.