question on HDFS

[Mori Bellamy]

hey all,
let us say that i have 3 boxes, A B and C. initially, map tasks are  
running on all 3. after most of the mapping is done, C is 32% done  
with reduce (so still copying stuff to its local disk) and A is stuck  
on a particularly long map-task (it got an ill-behaved record from the  
input splits). does A's intermediate map output data go directly to  
C's local disk, or is it still written to HDFS and therefore  
distributed amongst all the machines? also, will A's disk be a favored  
target for A's output bytes, or is the target volume independent of  
the corresponding mapper?

Thanks! The answer to this question should clear a lot of things up  
for me.