9 Aug
2019
9 Aug
'19
5:43 p.m.
I did have a case where the Pi I was using as secondary DNS/DHCP and as the
secondary backup server (using USB spinning disk) destroyed its SD card.
But then it turned out not to be the load at all. No matter what I ran on
that Pi, it would corrupt its SD cards in a matter of weeks (the symptom
was that the fourth bit of some bytes would just stick on). I assume it
was just something broken in the Pi itself.
I will state here, for the record, that if someone can spam effectively --
or be a botnet C&C node -- from TOPS/10 on a PDP-10 emulated on my Pi, my
irritation at having my systems abused will probably be overwhelmed by my
admiration at their dedication.
(Traffic encryption via simh is incredibly painful. You have to turn login
delay waaaaay up to run NetBSD on VAX on a Pi if you want to be able to ssh
into it; the machine itself runs fine-ish, but the zillions of cycles to
encrypt the traffic swamps it in no time.)
And, you know, if you manage to cause my SD cards in those machines to
fail, well, gosh, guess I'm out $10 or so for a new one. I'm not bothering
to back up any of the stuff inside 'em, btw (so those of you using 'em,
seriously, save your work elsewhere if it's precious--and, um, yeah, unless
you're on OpenVMS, TOPS-20, or ITS, you don't have a TCP/IP stack and since
you don't have a direct terminal interface into it, that probably means
copying and pasting from the terminal session...but if you have something
you really want off it that's larger than a couple of screens full, just
write me a note and I can likely extract it for you more reasonably).
Adam
9 Aug
9 Aug
6:24 p.m.
On 8/9/2019 3:43 PM, Adam Thornton via cctalk wrote:
And, you know, if you manage to cause my SD cards in
those machines to
fail, well, gosh, guess I'm out $10 or so for a new one. I'm not bothering
to back up any of the stuff inside 'em, btw (so those of you using 'em,
seriously, save your work elsewhere if it's precious--and, um, yeah, unless
you're on OpenVMS, TOPS-20, or ITS, you don't have a TCP/IP stack and since
you don't have a direct terminal interface into it, that probably means
copying and pasting from the terminal session...but if you have something
you really want off it that's larger than a couple of screens full, just
write me a note and I can likely extract it for you more reasonably).
Adam
Have you looked at industrial sd cards?
Ben.
7:03 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Adam Thornton via
cctalk
Sent: Friday, August 9, 2019 3:44 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: Raspberry Pi write cycles
I did have a case where the Pi I was using as secondary DNS/DHCP and as the secondary
backup server (using USB spinning disk) destroyed its SD card.
But then it turned out not to be the load at all. No matter what I ran on that Pi, it
would corrupt its SD cards in a matter of weeks (the symptom was that the fourth bit of
some bytes would just stick on). I assume it was just something broken in the Pi itself.
===
The usual cause of this is an insufficiently beefy power supply. Every Pi that I ever had
that ate SD cards ceased the habit when I put a better supply on it.
Jim
11 Aug
11 Aug
12:41 a.m.
Ditto on Pi taking more amps than advertised. Another catch though are
counterfeit SD cards. I only recently learned about them from a friend and
YouTube video but they can get into online stores sometimes without the
seller even knowing. I ended up finding two of mine bought from ham radio
expo are counterfeit. They were labelled 32GB and generic/bulk packaging.
However any more than 8GB will be corrupt so they're really 8 and the other
sectors will either be corrupt or overwrite the original sectors.
It's interesting that it doesn't report errors so the OS is fine writing to
the sectors. Only way to tell that I've seen I'd actually writing to full
amount of data and confirming all the files are valid.
On Fri, Aug 9, 2019, 6:19 PM Jim MacKenzie via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Adam
Thornton via cctalk
Sent: Friday, August 9, 2019 3:44 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <
cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: Raspberry Pi write cycles
I did have a case where the Pi I was using as secondary DNS/DHCP and as
the secondary backup server (using USB spinning disk) destroyed its SD card.
But then it turned out not to be the load at all. No matter what I ran on
that Pi, it would corrupt its SD cards in a matter of weeks (the symptom
was that the fourth bit of some bytes would just stick on). I assume it
was just something broken in the Pi itself.
===
The usual cause of this is an insufficiently beefy power supply. Every Pi
that I ever had that ate SD cards ceased the habit when I put a better
supply on it.
Jim
14 Aug
14 Aug
5:36 p.m.
On Fri, Aug 09, 2019 at 02:43:38PM -0700, Adam Thornton via cctalk wrote:
I did have a case where the Pi I was using as
secondary DNS/DHCP and as the
secondary backup server (using USB spinning disk) destroyed its SD card.
But then it turned out not to be the load at all. No matter what I ran on
that Pi, it would corrupt its SD cards in a matter of weeks (the symptom
was that the fourth bit of some bytes would just stick on). I assume it
was just something broken in the Pi itself.
The two usual suspects:
- standard consumer sd cards don't do so well outside of their design
use case (mostly cameras and media players) and I suspect a journaling FS
(which is a perfectly reasonable default, usually ext4 these days,
for Linux) is probably especially bad - so I recommend looking for
industrial grade SD cards, they cost a little more, are usually only
available in smaller sizes (I've seen 8, 16, 32 GB) but they tend to
last a lot longer
- sub-par power supply, having the power brown out a little is _bad_
for basically any kind of reliable operation - make sure your PSU
can actually reliably deliver enough juice (ISTR the recommendation being
3+ amps), I suppose the "official" ones from the Pi foundation should
be up to the job
(Traffic encryption via simh is incredibly painful.
You have to turn login
delay waaaaay up to run NetBSD on VAX on a Pi if you want to be able to ssh
into it; the machine itself runs fine-ish, but the zillions of cycles to
encrypt the traffic swamps it in no time.)
If you want to stick with the Raspberry Pi platform, what kind of Pi are
you currently using? If it is a Pi 3, maybe try a Pi 4, that is noticeably
beefier. Note: with the Pi 4, you have to use the official power supply
and cable as they screwed up the USB-C side (by _not_ exactly copying the
schematic in the specs, saving one resistor on the BOM with the result that
high end cables will mis-recognize the Pi as an 'audio accessory' and not
power it).
And, you know, if you manage to cause my SD cards in
those machines to
fail, well, gosh, guess I'm out $10 or so for a new one. I'm not bothering
to back up any of the stuff inside 'em,
I assume you've got a master image that you just write to a new SD card,
replace card, power cycle Pi, done?
Kind regards,
Alex.
--
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
11:04 p.m.
Some of the newer larger SD cards use a different write voltage than 3.3V. There is a ways
of asking the card what voltage it likes during the init.
Using the full 3.3V on these parts can damage them.
They are all required to init with 3.3V but the voltage for writing may be different.
I've only played with the ones smaller than 2GB. But any time I get a new one, I check
the voltage.
Dwight
________________________________
From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> on behalf of Alexander Schreiber via
cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2019 2:36 PM
To: Adam Thornton <athornton at gmail.com>; General Discussion: On-Topic and
Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: Raspberry Pi write cycles
On Fri, Aug 09, 2019 at 02:43:38PM -0700, Adam Thornton via cctalk wrote:
I did have a case where the Pi I was using as
secondary DNS/DHCP and as the
secondary backup server (using USB spinning disk) destroyed its SD card.
But then it turned out not to be the load at all. No matter what I ran on
that Pi, it would corrupt its SD cards in a matter of weeks (the symptom
was that the fourth bit of some bytes would just stick on). I assume it
was just something broken in the Pi itself.
The two usual suspects:
- standard consumer sd cards don't do so well outside of their design
use case (mostly cameras and media players) and I suspect a journaling FS
(which is a perfectly reasonable default, usually ext4 these days,
for Linux) is probably especially bad - so I recommend looking for
industrial grade SD cards, they cost a little more, are usually only
available in smaller sizes (I've seen 8, 16, 32 GB) but they tend to
last a lot longer
- sub-par power supply, having the power brown out a little is _bad_
for basically any kind of reliable operation - make sure your PSU
can actually reliably deliver enough juice (ISTR the recommendation being
3+ amps), I suppose the "official" ones from the Pi foundation should
be up to the job
(Traffic encryption via simh is incredibly painful.
You have to turn login
delay waaaaay up to run NetBSD on VAX on a Pi if you want to be able to ssh
into it; the machine itself runs fine-ish, but the zillions of cycles to
encrypt the traffic swamps it in no time.)
If you want to stick with the Raspberry Pi platform, what kind of Pi are
you currently using? If it is a Pi 3, maybe try a Pi 4, that is noticeably
beefier. Note: with the Pi 4, you have to use the official power supply
and cable as they screwed up the USB-C side (by _not_ exactly copying the
schematic in the specs, saving one resistor on the BOM with the result that
high end cables will mis-recognize the Pi as an 'audio accessory' and not
power it).
And, you know, if you manage to cause my SD cards in
those machines to
fail, well, gosh, guess I'm out $10 or so for a new one. I'm not bothering
to back up any of the stuff inside 'em,
I assume you've got a master image that you just write to a new SD card,
replace card, power cycle Pi, done?
Kind regards,
Alex.
--
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
15 Aug
15 Aug
1:17 a.m.
On 8/14/19 8:04 PM, dwight via cctalk wrote:
Some of the newer larger SD cards use a different
write voltage than 3.3V. There is a ways of asking the card what voltage it likes during
the init.
Using the full 3.3V on these parts can damage them.
They are all required to init with 3.3V but the voltage for writing may be different.
I've only played with the ones smaller than 2GB. But any time I get a new one, I
check the voltage.
Dwight
Does the Pi use the spi interface or the SD 4 bit interface? The latter
is faster and I'd expect the Pi to use it.
I've modified the bootloader on my OPi systems to use USB pen drives.
Seems to work just fine.
FWIW, SD, SDHC and SDXC cards work fine (per spec) at 3.3V. I use 16
and 32GB ones at 3.3V and they work flawlessly. You *can* command SDHC
and SDXC to 1.8V, but the conversation is usually started at 3.3V.
--Chuck
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