FreeBSD 6.x CVSUP today crashes with zero load ...
Paul Allen
nospam at ugcs.caltech.edu
Tue Jun 27 00:41:25 UTC 2006
>From "M.Hirsch" <webmaster at hirsch.it>, Tue, Jun 27, 2006 at 01:38:35AM +0200:
> Sticks don't just break on a single bit. From my experience, a stick
> that's got any problems at all, will cause even more trouble soon...
> If a hardware problem isn't worth panick'ing, what else is?
> (don't answer this one please, this was a rhetorical question - to those
> who didn't get it...)
As has been mentioned by other people already: this position is severely
ahistorical. ECC has traditionally been motivated by a desire to
1) provide reliable computing operations
2) ensure high-availability (uptime)
The very originating purpose of ECC was to keep the computer going in the
face of an alpha particle strike.
Alpha particles flip *single* bits.
ECC was never intended to detect crummy, failing hardware: that's a use
people have shoe-horned it into, but for which it is not entirely suited.
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