[time-nuts] Re: Clock display on Linux systems?

[Nick Sayer]

I forget where I saw it, but my understanding is that the big issue is finding SD cards that can perform whole-disk wear leveling, like proper SSDs do. Apparently, the WD purple series do, according to the e-mail thread I read that I forgot where. Someone contacted WD and got a confirmation that these really do have whole-disk wear leveling. Given that they’re targeting surveillance cameras, it seems reasonable.

> On Dec 7, 2021, at 6:09 AM, John Sloan <jsloan at diag.com> wrote:
> 
>> In this application RPis seem to last for many years - in others where we
>> use the SD-card (e.g. influxdb or similar) they seem to regularly fail in
>> 1-2 years, requiring an reformat or new SD-card. An RPi or similar with a
>> more robust SSD/M2 drive would be good.
> 
> I’ve had the same experience with the SD cards.
> 
> At least the most recent Raspberry Pis (e.g. the 4B) support firmware to boot from USB with just a little configuration effort. I just recently starting playing with this, booting a RPi 4B from a USB-attached Samsung T5 SSD. It seems to work mostly fine (caveat: see below). For other reasons, I’ve been running a RPi-specific version of Linux MATE, but Raspbian should work okay too. (I tried the RPi-specific image of Ubuntu, since I run Ubuntu on my Intel machines, but was not terribly impressed; slow interactive response.)
> 
> One thing I did run into: if I try to plug too many USB devices in along with the SSD - e.g. in my case a mouse, keyboard, and GPS dongle - the system crashes because the SSD USB connection resets. It seems to be a power problem; I solved it with an external powered USB hub, leaving the SSD on a USB port on the RPi.
> 
> :John
> 
> --
> J. L. Sloan             Digital Aggregates Corporation
> +1.303.489.5178         3440 Youngfield Street
> mailto:jsloan at diag.com  #209
> http://www.diag.com     Wheat Ridge CO 80033 USA
> 
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