[time-nuts] 5370 processor boards available

[Brian Lloyd]

It is interesting to watch this thread. The most interesting thing is the
fact that no one has asked or answered the basic question: is there a
problem? There are a lot of solutions for what may be a complete non-issue.

Given that Linux and BSD are reliable and stable on standard PC platforms
connected to mains power without a UPS, that suggests to me that there is
likely no issue. Sure, back in the bad ol' days you had to sync;sync;sync
the filesystem prior to shutdown and then, if there had been a power fail,
fsck it on power up. But those days have been gone for a LONG time. 

The modern filesystems reduce the exposure to the possibility of file
system corruption to a tiny probability, and then the system further
reduces that by providing a power-fail detection system that allows the
critical pending writes to be flushed prior to final power-fail, thus
leaving the FS in a completely deterministic state.

I suppose that on the night of a full moon when the lightning flashes and
the dog barks, conditions might be right to corrupt the file system, but
then, that could happen when the battery goes dead or catches fire too. ;-)

It seems to me that the bard put it pretty well, "... much ado about
nothing."

-- 
Brian Lloyd, WB6RQN/J79BPL
706 Flightline Drive
Spring Branch, TX 78070
brian at lloyd.com
+1.916.877.5067