4 ms·

Too bad it's a Pi inside. Give it a few years and most will fail from bad SD cards... A cheap consumer tablet will keep ticking for years.

recursive 5y ago
So it will fail after the same length of time that a consumer tablet will keep ticking? FWIW, I use an ipad to enter a code at my kids' pre-school. The screens are frequently messed up.
- spicybright 5y ago
  I can't say for certain, but I would trust an iPad to run longer than a stock raspi + touch screen used in the same way.
jazzyjackson 5y ago
…so it’s a good thing the part that wears out is the easiest thing in the world to replace, right?
- spicybright 5y ago
  The cost of replacement isn't 0, you need to hire a replacement crew which is insanely expensive in comparison.
qbasic_forever 5y ago
You can directly boot a Pi from USB now with the Pi 4. Switch to a SSD and you won't worry about SD card corruption as much. The bigger issue is that you need to cleanly shutdown any embedded system instead of just yanking or hard cutting power--flash memory and filesystems need time to sync. The Pi is no more or no less susceptible to this problem. Also you're comparing to a tablet, a device with a _built in battery_ that prevents hard power loss in 99% of circumstances. Just because you press the power button on your tablet does not mean it is immediately cutting power to the device. If you add a battery backup and soft power switch to the Pi you would be just as reliable as a tablet. If you remove the battery from a tablet and hard cut the power, you can just as easily corrupt its flash memory filesystem.
- nightfly 5y ago
  Any serious embedded system should designed with minimal writable data: ro os and minimal writable data partitions. And at a minimum do manual syncs. Hopefully using a data storage system that in the worst case you lose a few records
  - spicybright 5y ago
    Exactly this. It's why most companies QA departments specifically test pulling the power completely at critical times over and over to reduce the chance of it not booting. Cell phones (at least androids), make lots of partitions to isolate user data and software upgrades, falling back to known good ones if the new software update doesn't run.
devmor 5y ago
Oh no, an easily-replaceable $10 part will fail instead of having to pay a vendor thousands to replace an entire unit? What a problem.
- mark-r 5y ago
  When swapping out the part requires having a technician drive out to a remote location, you bet it's a problem. Having a process stopped while this happens is a problem. The price of the part is almost irrelevant at that point.
  - spicybright 5y ago
    100% this. Replace a ~$20 part with a ~$150 part, and you can avoid spending up to $1000 sending a repair crew, paying for the vehicle, gas, employee pay, time spent by them, etc. to a single unit. You'd be lying through your teeth if you think a fleet of off the shelf raspis will last more than 5 years without most failing. Anyone well versed in cost management within technology will know this.
    - devmor 5y ago
      As opposed to the existing systems that definitely don't fail more often than 5 years and definitely don't require tens of thousands in support contracts. You're not "well versed in cost management", you're a sucker with buyers remorse for vendor bullshit.
amiga-workbench 5y ago
Can't the Pi boot off a network?
- syntheticnature 5y ago
  Indeed it can!
SahAssar 5y ago
Cheap tablets use eMMC so they use the exact same storage technology with the same problems.
- spicybright 5y ago
  is eMMC mechanical?
  - SahAssar 5y ago
    No. It's solid-state storage.
kfarr 5y ago
I was going to post a similar response. From my direct experience all my Pi setups became corrupted within weeks or months. Admittedly it probably was caused by user turning off power mid-write or other preventable actions, but this is real life. I'm excited to see the replies to your response that have some practical suggestions to prevent this.
- spicybright 5y ago
  Mmm. A shame I've been downvoted, not many people will see it.
pfundstein 5y ago
Funny, do you have anything to back that up? Anecdotally, I have a 7 year old pi running my watering system and it hasn't skipped a beat in 7 years of being on 24/7. (current uptime is 1029 days).
- spicybright 5y ago
  Yes. I've had two failed after 2 years of 24/7 uptime. What SD card do you use for yours?
  - omilu 5y ago
    read only file system

recursive 5y ago

So it will fail after the same length of time that a consumer tablet will keep ticking? FWIW, I use an ipad to enter a code at my kids' pre-school. The screens are frequently messed up.

spicybright 5y ago
I can't say for certain, but I would trust an iPad to run longer than a stock raspi + touch screen used in the same way.

jazzyjackson 5y ago

…so it’s a good thing the part that wears out is the easiest thing in the world to replace, right?

spicybright 5y ago
The cost of replacement isn't 0, you need to hire a replacement crew which is insanely expensive in comparison.

qbasic_forever 5y ago

You can directly boot a Pi from USB now with the Pi 4. Switch to a SSD and you won't worry about SD card corruption as much. The bigger issue is that you need to cleanly shutdown any embedded system instead of just yanking or hard cutting power--flash memory and filesystems need time to sync. The Pi is no more or no less susceptible to this problem. Also you're comparing to a tablet, a device with a _built in battery_ that prevents hard power loss in 99% of circumstances. Just because you press the power button on your tablet does not mean it is immediately cutting power to the device. If you add a battery backup and soft power switch to the Pi you would be just as reliable as a tablet. If you remove the battery from a tablet and hard cut the power, you can just as easily corrupt its flash memory filesystem.

nightfly 5y ago
Any serious embedded system should designed with minimal writable data: ro os and minimal writable data partitions. And at a minimum do manual syncs. Hopefully using a data storage system that in the worst case you lose a few records
- spicybright 5y ago
  Exactly this. It's why most companies QA departments specifically test pulling the power completely at critical times over and over to reduce the chance of it not booting. Cell phones (at least androids), make lots of partitions to isolate user data and software upgrades, falling back to known good ones if the new software update doesn't run.

devmor 5y ago

Oh no, an easily-replaceable $10 part will fail instead of having to pay a vendor thousands to replace an entire unit? What a problem.

mark-r 5y ago
When swapping out the part requires having a technician drive out to a remote location, you bet it's a problem. Having a process stopped while this happens is a problem. The price of the part is almost irrelevant at that point.
- spicybright 5y ago
  100% this. Replace a ~$20 part with a ~$150 part, and you can avoid spending up to $1000 sending a repair crew, paying for the vehicle, gas, employee pay, time spent by them, etc. to a single unit. You'd be lying through your teeth if you think a fleet of off the shelf raspis will last more than 5 years without most failing. Anyone well versed in cost management within technology will know this.
  - devmor 5y ago
    As opposed to the existing systems that definitely don't fail more often than 5 years and definitely don't require tens of thousands in support contracts. You're not "well versed in cost management", you're a sucker with buyers remorse for vendor bullshit.

amiga-workbench 5y ago

Can't the Pi boot off a network?

syntheticnature 5y ago
Indeed it can!

SahAssar 5y ago

Cheap tablets use eMMC so they use the exact same storage technology with the same problems.

spicybright 5y ago
is eMMC mechanical?
- SahAssar 5y ago
  No. It's solid-state storage.

kfarr 5y ago

I was going to post a similar response. From my direct experience all my Pi setups became corrupted within weeks or months. Admittedly it probably was caused by user turning off power mid-write or other preventable actions, but this is real life. I'm excited to see the replies to your response that have some practical suggestions to prevent this.

spicybright 5y ago
Mmm. A shame I've been downvoted, not many people will see it.

pfundstein 5y ago

Funny, do you have anything to back that up? Anecdotally, I have a 7 year old pi running my watering system and it hasn't skipped a beat in 7 years of being on 24/7. (current uptime is 1029 days).

spicybright 5y ago
Yes. I've had two failed after 2 years of 24/7 uptime. What SD card do you use for yours?
- omilu 5y ago
  read only file system