<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On May 23, 2016, at 8:41 AM, Wilfried Woeber <<a href="mailto:woeber@cc.univie.ac.at" class="">woeber@cc.univie.ac.at</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div class="">[...]<br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">Has anyone tested how many writes are going on to the ATLAS thumb<br class="">drive? Perhaps with all the failures within a year of start, perhaps<br class="">too many writes are taking place?<br class=""></blockquote><br class="">I know that a very small number of probes is not a valid basis for statistics,<br class="">but there wasn't a USB drive failure yet for the long-term, always-on probe.<br class=""><br class="">But they are powered with dedicated, stable power sources.<br class="">Thus I tend to lean more towards the explanation involving level or stability<br class="">of power, rather than # of writes.<br class=""><br class="">FWIW,<br class="">Wilfried<br class=""><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">Regards,<br class="">Hank<br class=""></blockquote><br class=""></div></div></blockquote></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">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.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Opinion: If the device/system/operation is at all important, use of a UPS is effectively mandatory.</div><br class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; line-height: normal; border-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; line-height: normal; border-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; line-height: normal;"><div class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">James R. Cutler</div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><a href="mailto:James.cutler@consultant.com" class="">James.cutler@consultant.com</a></div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">PGP keys at <a href="http://pgp.mit.edu" class="">http://pgp.mit.edu</a></div></div></span></span></span></span></span></div></div></div><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""></blockquote></div></div></body></html>