[Asterisk-Users] Hard drive write cache

[Boris Bakchiev]

> The cold hard truth is that if Asterisk cannot achieve 99.999% uptime
> without becoming much more expensive that a traditional PBX then it is
not
> a
> viable alternative.  Even elcheapo Key systems are rated for five
nines.
> That is what the telco world requires unless your just using Asterisk
in
> your basement as a hobby or as a one man company.

Well, you can pretty much guarantee 100% software uptime with asterisk.
The main causes of crashes of the working system are.... users.
If it works... don't touch it, do not logon to it... forget about it.

Create a minimalistic root system with busybox, have everything on CF on
IDE adapter, user UPS with shutdown to protect the CF (as they're prone
to failures on power loss) and you have yourself a VERY stable system.

You can use JFFS2 on block device to reduce the wear on CF but you will
not need it if you're not writing anything on CF (or have 2 CF's and md
them together.)

I have never seen PBX with guarantee of 99.999%. None of the
manufacturers will commit to that unless it is a highly redundant
system, but by then it's not elcheapo.

About fanless PC's.. A stock standard intel fan would lust longer then
you think unless its located in dusty and damp place.

I have a p3 that's been running for 5 years non-stop and it was still
going strong.. Half the capacitors started to leak on the motherboard
but the fan was still spinning. :) Now that's reliability!

> Redundant Servers is moving into the realm of non-competitive with
> Traditional PBX IMHO.
> 

More or less true. Any 100-200 extension highly redundant PBX system
will costs you more or less the same money.