1. A method implemented in a computer-readable storage medium to process on one or more processors and to perform the method, comprising: receiving a turn-durability-off setting for an attribute of a resource managed by a directory; updating a listing to assign the turn-durability-off setting to the attribute; subsequently detecting a directory transaction that alters the attribute; and passing the directory transaction to a directory database for processing and instructing the directory database to process the directory transaction without flushing the directory transaction from memory to storage in response to the turn-durability-off setting included in the listing.