diff --git a/block.c b/block.c
index 0b0966c571..cd70730a3e 100644
--- a/block.c
+++ b/block.c
@@ -50,6 +50,8 @@ static BlockDriverAIOCB *bdrv_aio_writev_em(BlockDriverState *bs,
         BlockDriverCompletionFunc *cb, void *opaque);
 static BlockDriverAIOCB *bdrv_aio_flush_em(BlockDriverState *bs,
         BlockDriverCompletionFunc *cb, void *opaque);
+static BlockDriverAIOCB *bdrv_aio_noop_em(BlockDriverState *bs,
+        BlockDriverCompletionFunc *cb, void *opaque);
 static int bdrv_read_em(BlockDriverState *bs, int64_t sector_num,
                         uint8_t *buf, int nb_sectors);
 static int bdrv_write_em(BlockDriverState *bs, int64_t sector_num,
@@ -1312,6 +1314,10 @@ const char *bdrv_get_device_name(BlockDriverState *bs)
 
 void bdrv_flush(BlockDriverState *bs)
 {
+    if (bs->open_flags & BDRV_O_NO_FLUSH) {
+        return;
+    }
+
     if (bs->drv && bs->drv->bdrv_flush)
         bs->drv->bdrv_flush(bs);
 }
@@ -2099,6 +2105,10 @@ BlockDriverAIOCB *bdrv_aio_flush(BlockDriverState *bs,
 {
     BlockDriver *drv = bs->drv;
 
+    if (bs->open_flags & BDRV_O_NO_FLUSH) {
+        return bdrv_aio_noop_em(bs, cb, opaque);
+    }
+
     if (!drv)
         return NULL;
     return drv->bdrv_aio_flush(bs, cb, opaque);
@@ -2214,6 +2224,25 @@ static BlockDriverAIOCB *bdrv_aio_flush_em(BlockDriverState *bs,
     return &acb->common;
 }
 
+static BlockDriverAIOCB *bdrv_aio_noop_em(BlockDriverState *bs,
+        BlockDriverCompletionFunc *cb, void *opaque)
+{
+    BlockDriverAIOCBSync *acb;
+
+    acb = qemu_aio_get(&bdrv_em_aio_pool, bs, cb, opaque);
+    acb->is_write = 1; /* don't bounce in the completion handler */
+    acb->qiov = NULL;
+    acb->bounce = NULL;
+    acb->ret = 0;
+
+    if (!acb->bh) {
+        acb->bh = qemu_bh_new(bdrv_aio_bh_cb, acb);
+    }
+
+    qemu_bh_schedule(acb->bh);
+    return &acb->common;
+}
+
 /**************************************************************/
 /* sync block device emulation */
 
diff --git a/block.h b/block.h
index 278259c2ba..24efeb68b1 100644
--- a/block.h
+++ b/block.h
@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ typedef struct QEMUSnapshotInfo {
 #define BDRV_O_CACHE_WB    0x0040 /* use write-back caching */
 #define BDRV_O_NATIVE_AIO  0x0080 /* use native AIO instead of the thread pool */
 #define BDRV_O_NO_BACKING  0x0100 /* don't open the backing file */
+#define BDRV_O_NO_FLUSH    0x0200 /* disable flushing on this disk */
 
 #define BDRV_O_CACHE_MASK  (BDRV_O_NOCACHE | BDRV_O_CACHE_WB)
 
diff --git a/qemu-config.c b/qemu-config.c
index aa376d450a..5a4e61b0f6 100644
--- a/qemu-config.c
+++ b/qemu-config.c
@@ -54,7 +54,7 @@ QemuOptsList qemu_drive_opts = {
         },{
             .name = "cache",
             .type = QEMU_OPT_STRING,
-            .help = "host cache usage (none, writeback, writethrough)",
+            .help = "host cache usage (none, writeback, writethrough, unsafe)",
         },{
             .name = "aio",
             .type = QEMU_OPT_STRING,
diff --git a/qemu-options.hx b/qemu-options.hx
index 03e95fd2bf..cea9b72b2a 100644
--- a/qemu-options.hx
+++ b/qemu-options.hx
@@ -118,8 +118,9 @@ ETEXI
 DEF("drive", HAS_ARG, QEMU_OPTION_drive,
     "-drive [file=file][,if=type][,bus=n][,unit=m][,media=d][,index=i]\n"
     "       [,cyls=c,heads=h,secs=s[,trans=t]][,snapshot=on|off]\n"
-    "       [,cache=writethrough|writeback|none][,format=f][,serial=s]\n"
-    "       [,addr=A][,id=name][,aio=threads|native][,readonly=on|off]\n"
+    "       [,cache=writethrough|writeback|unsafe|none][,format=f]\n"
+    "       [,serial=s][,addr=A][,id=name][,aio=threads|native]\n"
+    "       [,readonly=on|off]\n"
     "                use 'file' as a drive image\n", QEMU_ARCH_ALL)
 STEXI
 @item -drive @var{option}[,@var{option}[,@var{option}[,...]]]
@@ -148,7 +149,7 @@ These options have the same definition as they have in @option{-hdachs}.
 @item snapshot=@var{snapshot}
 @var{snapshot} is "on" or "off" and allows to enable snapshot for given drive (see @option{-snapshot}).
 @item cache=@var{cache}
-@var{cache} is "none", "writeback", or "writethrough" and controls how the host cache is used to access block data.
+@var{cache} is "none", "writeback", "unsafe", or "writethrough" and controls how the host cache is used to access block data.
 @item aio=@var{aio}
 @var{aio} is "threads", or "native" and selects between pthread based disk I/O and native Linux AIO.
 @item format=@var{format}
@@ -180,6 +181,12 @@ Some block drivers perform badly with @option{cache=writethrough}, most notably,
 qcow2.  If performance is more important than correctness,
 @option{cache=writeback} should be used with qcow2.
 
+In case you don't care about data integrity over host failures, use
+cache=unsafe. This option tells qemu that it never needs to write any data
+to the disk but can instead keeps things in cache. If anything goes wrong,
+like your host losing power, the disk storage getting disconnected accidently,
+etc. you're image will most probably be rendered unusable.
+
 Instead of @option{-cdrom} you can use:
 @example
 qemu -drive file=file,index=2,media=cdrom
diff --git a/vl.c b/vl.c
index 328395e3dd..bc15dd74af 100644
--- a/vl.c
+++ b/vl.c
@@ -913,6 +913,9 @@ DriveInfo *drive_init(QemuOpts *opts, void *opaque,
             bdrv_flags |= BDRV_O_NOCACHE;
         } else if (!strcmp(buf, "writeback")) {
             bdrv_flags |= BDRV_O_CACHE_WB;
+        } else if (!strcmp(buf, "unsafe")) {
+            bdrv_flags |= BDRV_O_CACHE_WB;
+            bdrv_flags |= BDRV_O_NO_FLUSH;
         } else if (!strcmp(buf, "writethrough")) {
             /* this is the default */
         } else {