[asterisk-users] Hardware [Was: How big is *your* dialplan??]

[Gordon Henderson]

On Thu, 12 Oct 2006, Andrew Kohlsmith wrote:

> On Wednesday 11 October 2006 17:56, Douglas Garstang wrote:
> > I have no data to prove it, but isn't the time between failures on this
> > type of TDM PBX equipment far better than a commodity server? Do they have
> > any moving parts? A server has moving parts, and moving parts fail.
>
> Norstar's voicemail system uses a hard drive.  Their agent and queuing system
> runs an embedded OS/2 PC.  They used to have a Flash-based voicemail system
> but they've phased that out years ago.

Intersting. Here I am building small systems using 2 IDE-Flash devices,
one for the OS, etc. the other for voicemail storage... Write cycles to
the voicemail device does concern me, but I'm thinking it shouldn't bite
me for at least a couple of years regular use. (The OS is loaded entirely
into RAM and never touches that flash device again except for config
saves)

Has anyone actually had a modern flash device fail? I'd have expected to
be hearing stories from people who's USB data-keys have failed, but
nothing so-far...

Is anyone else building small systems which boot off flash?

I used to work in a place that had an old Meridian system - it had a SCSI
drive inside it and once a year a service bloke would come out and take a
backup of the drive!

> Also keep in mind that if you buy the cheapest PC equipment you're likely
> going to run into trouble, just as you predict.  However I have servers here
> (not brand-name expensive stuff either, just decent components) which have
> uptimes higher than my Norstar KSU, which tends to lose a trunk card every
> year or so.

Ditto that about the servers. Pick good components you know & trust. burn
them in well and they'll give you a lifetime of service (which for my
server clients is 4 years max, and I strongly urge them to upgrade in the
4th year!)

Gordon