[atlas] USB drive more harmful than helpful?

> On May 23, 2016, at 8:41 AM, Wilfried Woeber <woeber at cc.univie.ac.at> wrote:
> 
> [...]
>> Has anyone tested how many writes are going on to the ATLAS thumb
>> drive?  Perhaps with all the failures within a year of start, perhaps
>> too many writes are taking place?
> 
> I know that a very small number of probes is not a valid basis for statistics,
> but there wasn't a USB drive failure yet for the long-term, always-on probe.
> 
> But they are powered with dedicated, stable power sources.
> Thus I tend to lean more towards the explanation involving level or stability
> of power, rather than # of writes.
> 
> FWIW,
> Wilfried
> 
>> Regards,
>> Hank
> 


Stable power, as from a UPS, also isolates the probe from power glitches which may cause rebooting of the probe, thus adding to the write count. Not to mention corruption from power failure during writes.

Opinion:  If the device/system/operation is at all important, use of a UPS is effectively mandatory.

James R. Cutler
James.cutler at consultant.com
PGP keys at http://pgp.mit.edu

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