How long can a PI be left on?

[Darren01274]

I was wondering how long a Raspberry Pi can be left on? Would it eventually just burn out?

Darren

[mahjongg]

no, the lifetime when running permanently of a PI can be counted in decades, its much more likely though that you have to replace the sd-card once in a while, they do have a limited lifespan, as they use flash memory with a limited number of write cycles.

there are people who have a server up for years now.

[B.Goode]

I was wondering how long a Raspberry Pi can be left on?

42

[mikerr]

They can be left on for months or years, without problems:


"as long as your batteries last"

"as long as you pay your electricity bill"

"until the end of time"

[DougieLawson]

I was wondering how long a Raspberry Pi can be left on? Would it eventually just burn out?

Darren

24/365 for less than £4.83 per year (at current prices) until the Sun goes to a red giant and burns up the inner planets. The end of time (aka the Big Crunch) is likely to be many billions of years after that.

[rpiswag]

I have another question that relates to the longevity of the pi. How long can the pi model B be left in storage before something like the pcb or the traces break down. I run a server with the pi's cpu always at 85-100 cpu usage level and at 50C and it has been running since early 2012 and it was my first and longest running project.

[DougieLawson]

I have another question that relates to the logitivity of the pi. How long can the pi model B be left in storage before something like the pcb or the traces break down.

The RPF are looking at thirty years and more.

[solar3000]

I never turn mine off.
I have about 11 pis so far.
I even have one to drive six 7-segment LEDs as a clock.

[marked]

24/365 for less than £4.83 per year (at current prices) until the Sun goes to a red giant and burns up the inner planets. The end of time (aka the Big Crunch) is likely to be many billions of years after that.

wouldn't dopant migration occur very much sooner than that so destroying any functional ability?

[septantrionalis]

I never turn mine off.
I have about 11 pis so far.
I even have one to drive six 7-segment LEDs as a clock.

Thats about how many pi's I have and I never turn them off. I have a few that seem to crash every few days, but my longest running pi is coming up to a year. I had it running for over a year before that but a power outage caused it to restart.

[W. H. Heydt]

I expect my Pis to outlast me, but I'm 66 and with the expected lifespan on the order of 30 to 40 years, I'd have to make it past 100 to start seeing them fail.

[Darren01274]

Wow that's amazing lol. Reason I asked was that I have one running kodi and wondered if I could just leave it running permanent and hidden so when I turn the input over on the TV I can access my movies straight away.

[Heater]

All day, everyday, forever. You are going to die before your Pi does.

[Darren01274]

All day, everyday, forever. You are going to die before your Pi does.

That is a depressing thought lol.

[Bananaguns]

I was wondering how long a Raspberry Pi can be left on? Would it eventually just burn out?

Darren

24/365 for less than £4.83 per year (at current prices) until the Sun goes to a red giant and burns up the inner planets. The end of time (aka the Big Crunch) is likely to be many billions of years after that.

Wow that's cheap! I wanted to figure out how much it cost to run the Pi but sheesh, I didn't think it was that cheap!

[DougieLawson]

Wow that's cheap! I wanted to figure out how much it cost to run the Pi but sheesh, I didn't think it was that cheap!

There's a typo it's only £4.38

That's based on it drawing a constant 1A @ 5V (with no losses) at an average cost of £0.10 for 1kWh. An idle RPi doesn't use the full 5 watts but there will be some loss in the power adapter, the microUSB cable and in the (xenon flash sensitive) smps (or linear voltage reg on older Pis). The maths I used is (5 * 24 * 365.25)/10000.

[jdb]

All day, everyday, forever. You are going to die before your Pi does.

It's an interesting bet to place - what will, on average, kill a Pi first?

- Lightning strike nearby zonking the power supply/ethernet port
- Getting flooded due to a burst pipe
- Corrosion due to rat wee (or similar)
- Fire
- Gamma-ray burst
- Methane clathrate runaway melting
- Zombie apocalypse

[DougieLawson]

- Methane clathrate runaway melting

I had to Google that one. It's an interesting way to the reach the apocalypse.

You missed
- asteroid collision (on the scale that wiped out the dinosaurs, if you believe that)

[boyoh]

On Load Off Load cycles

Copper Loss

Electron Friction

[marked]

All day, everyday, forever. You are going to die before your Pi does.

- Corrosion due to rat wee (or similar)

Hasn't that one already happened? or was it a hamster or cat? it was within the last couple of months anyway as someone suspected factory damage to start with.

yep, found it http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewt ... 63&t=97596

[Darren01274]

Hope my power adapter doesnt set on fire lol

[adlambert]

I have another question that relates to the longevity of the pi. How long can the pi model B be left in storage before something like the pcb or the traces break down. I run a server with the pi's cpu always at 85-100 cpu usage level and at 50C and it has been running since early 2012 and it was my first and longest running project.

I have a Casio calculator from 1976 that works like it did when it was new.
I also have a ZX81 that works when I occasionally switch it on. The ZX uses DIL package components which might not be comparable to SMD but I would have hoped that PCB technology would have improved over 30+ years.

[boyoh]

My wife's got a Dish Washer 83yrs old
And still going strong . A present from
from my mother and farther in 1931
All you have to do is oil it now and again

The wife calls it BOYOH,
PS It's switched on all the time.

[hk1963]

Wow that's amazing lol. Reason I asked was that I have one running kodi and wondered if I could just leave it running permanent and hidden so when I turn the input over on the TV I can access my movies straight away.

As the Pi has no moving parts, it is usually better to keep it running all the time so there is less temperature change stress to the board. Especially if you would switch it on and off several times a day.

[solar3000]

so has anyone had a pi die?
I know plenty of people think it is dead when its actually a non-booting sd card.