On 05/08/2014 01:29, NeilBrown wrote:
On Tue, 05 Aug 2014 00:44:04 +0200 Gionatan Danti <g.danti@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: Probabilities are often calculated by examining a statistical record - the two concepts are not separate. There is probably some theoretical analysis, some statistical analysis, some marketing and maybe even some actuarial analysis that goes in to the quoted figure. I remember when CPU speed was measured in "MIPS". This stood for Meaningless Indicators of Performance for Salesmen URE rates numbers are probably equally trustworthy. The probability number doesn't tell you much at all about your drive. Your drive probably works much better than the quoted rate, but could be much worse. The quoted number might say something useful about a collection of 10,000 drives, but if you can afford those, you can probably afford to competent statistician to explain the details too. I'm not an electro-magnetic engineer, but I would guess that UREs are caused by some combination of: - irregularities in the physical media - imperfections in positioning of the write head - fluctuations in temperature and pressure which could affect precise performance of resistors and capacitors etc. and probably various quantum effects that I know nothing about. Maybe most UREs come from a spec of dust that was in the wrong place at the wrong time. If think a better summary would be: in normal conditions and typical loads, a collection of 10^14 drives will exhibit errors somewhere in the collection on a regular basis. NeilBrown
VERY informative post. Thank you Neil. -- Danti Gionatan Supporto Tecnico Assyoma S.r.l. - www.assyoma.it email: g.danti@xxxxxxxxxx - info@xxxxxxxxxx GPG public key ID: FF5F32A8 -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html