[ale] Source for Inexpensive, Quiet, Low-Power, rackmount server?

[mike at trausch.us]

On 10/16/2012 09:05 PM, Ron Frazier (ALE) wrote:
> I was unable to find definitive data on how these things fail at the
> end of their life.  Also, if the unit is powered off, and it cannot
> do it's data scrubbing, your data can fade away relatively quickly.
> Probably not a problem with a server that's generally always on.

Flash has a decent enough retention---a device that's powered off for a
few weeks will work just fine.  My laptop with the SSD is off for months
at a time, and I have no errors on it.

Failure will manifest the same way as any other block device, with I/O
errors at the block level.  Some SSDs attempt to abstract this away a
little more than HDDs do, by moving data around the media more.
However, once that stops being effective, you'll get either bad data
reads or read errors.

Of course, if you have a sane backup regimen, it doesn't really matter:
you should always assume that all of your HDDs/SSDs are going to die all
at the same time, always.  It is the only way to be safe, period.

	--- Mike

-- 
A man who reasons deliberately, manages it better after studying Logic
than he could before, if he is sincere about it and has common sense.
                                   --- Carveth Read, “Logic”

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