Power fault tolerance

  • Thread starter Thread starter HMS Surprise
  • Start date Start date
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HMS Surprise

We are developing an application that uses a Via Technologies Mini-ITX
PC board with the VIA Nehemiah processor. The OS is XP,

the file system is NTFS on an 8Gb flash drive, no HD. These PCs are
used in service trucks

(electric power companies, etc) to run web based apps via wireless
broadband. No local apps will

be run so at most we expect to lose perhaps a field entry or two on a
web page data field if

power is interrupted.

I want to make the system fault tolerant of power interruptions. We
have three wire power and the

computer "knows" to start up or shut down based on the ignition switch
(with delay) but there

will be times when power could be interrupted unexpectedly.

I have removed all power when apps are running and when it reboots I do
not get a message about

Windows not being properly shut down. However if I interrupt power
during start up I do get a

safe screen start option on next power up. I was expecting an error
message in both cases but

would prefer not to get one in either case. I believe that NTFS uses
caching and FATs do not so would it help to use FAT16 or FAT32 instead
of NTFS? What would be the pros and cons?

What other configuration changes would you suggest?



Thanks,

john
 
No to the FAT file system. You'll have more issues related to power loss
than with NTFS. As far as the warning screen when you lose power during the
bootup process, it should default to start Windows normally, so it shouldn't
be much of a problem.

Also, seeing as everything your users will be doing is web based, then there
shouldn't be to much of an issue of lost data due to disk caching when you
lose power. Like you said, they will lose the last entry they were working
on, but everything else that they've already submitted prior to the power
outage would already be stored remotely wherever the web server stores it.

--
Mike

Posted as-is. Any spelling and/or grammar mistakes are a direct result of a
communication glitch between my brain and my fingers which may or may not be
directly related to a lack of caffeine intake.
 
FreeComputerConsultant.com said:
NTFS for sure. Recoverability being the reason.

Can you install a small UPS in the truck, that would be best I would think?
Click to expand...

Thank you both for posting. We will stay with NTFS then.

A small UPS has been considered. We could use a small 12V battery
charged via a power diode and/or a relay arrangment so that it doesn't
backfeed and try to supply power to the truck.

jh
 
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