How long can I run the RasPi for?

[8Everything]

Okay guys, now some may be amused at this post but I've a genuine question - I run a Windows machine, and I never switch it off (I.e. it runs non-stop for upto a month at times).

Can I attempt something like that with the RasPi?

P.S. My usage will be very, very basic - just need to know how delicate/sturdy this little credit card sized wonder is

Thanks!

[liz]

Definitely; we've had people mail us saying theirs has been up for over a year now. Pete at Mythic almost made a year with one we gave him last February, but unfortunately it got knocked over by a power cut with about two weeks to go!

[8Everything]

Wow! a year with the RasPi? (Just to make sure, the computer's not been restarted even once?)

[W. H. Heydt]

Mine tend to get restarted for various reasons, such as software upgrades or the odd power outage. However, staying up for a month or two isn't unusual.

If a PC is staying up for a month at a time, then it isn't allowing MS to patch the OS, which almost invariably requires a reboot.

[pluggy]

[SN]

Raspberry Pi R3 hosting sn.ickl.in / bryxx.com
Linux R3 3.2.27+ #160 PREEMPT Mon Sep 17 23:18:42 BST 2012 armv6l GNU/Linux

19:26:34 up 155 days, 18:59, 0 users, load average: 0.11, 0.07, 0.09

[Joe Schmoe]

Keep in mind that on 32-bit Linux (in which category the Pi falls), the "uptime" command rolls over at about 497 days (4/3 of a year). I've seen this happen on x86, but have yet to see it on the Pi. But I'm sure I will...

P.S. Details: Linux keeps time in units of 1/100 of a second (jiffies). 2^32/100 = about 40 million.

P.P.S. Windows keeps it in 1000ths of a second. So, it rolls over at 49 days. Which is appropriate, considering...

[alexeames]

I only shut down my weather station Pi once every few months. Usually when I want to mess about with the hardware. It's pretty stable. Also acts as a gateway to my media server (the software that came with that was woefully crap, so I just mount it on the Pi via router using CIFS and use SFTP). I dumped a gigabyte backup file on there today from abroad and downloaded a 2 Gig film to watch the other day. The weather station didn't skip a beat.

[rurwin]

The hero points still go to QNX. Their salesman told us of one machine that had been running non-stop for seven years, and in that time it had had complete upgrades of both the application and the operating system. (Linux has loadable modules in the kernel which can be upgraded and reloaded without rebooting, but the QNX kernel is all loadable modules.)

Back in the eighties and nineties I was responsible for a couple of Sun workstations that were only ever switched off once a year over Christmas. Getting them back up was a pain because the hard-drive heads would stick when they got cold and you'd have to keep tapping them and restarting until they worked. I would have been much happier never turning them off.

Generally, it's the moving parts that wear out, and those tend to break when starting. So generally, electronics works better if you don't switch it off. For something like the RaspPi with no moving parts, there is no reason ever to switch it off.

Badly written software will break over time due to memory leaks and such, but Linux itself is solid enough to run forever. Almost every part can be upgraded on the fly; you do need to reboot to load a new kernel though.

[pluggy]

I'm forever trying new firmware to get around some issues so mine don't get to run for so long usually. Pi 4 is my longest running coming up to 40 days, which isn't so bad considering it has the current Raspdian image on it. I've had linux boxes running for over a year solid in the past. It was either a power failure and the UPS decided it didn't want to play or it was a hardware fault that brought them down.

[rpdom]

Linux itself is solid enough to run forever. Almost every part can be upgraded on the fly; you do need to reboot to load a new kernel though.

There are ways around that. It is possible, with the right software and a fair bit of work, to patch in a new kernel on a running system without rebooting. I looked at it sometime back, but decided it was easier just to reboot and put up with a few minutes of downtime. Thankfully those systems didn't take over 45 minutes to boot up, like some Unix servers that I had to work with.

[8Everything]

Thanks everyone for sorting that doubt out!

So I've finally purchased the RasPi (was using a friend's piece till now...) - but now that I have my own, stay tuned for more n00b questions

[MrEngman]

If a PC is staying up for a month at a time, then it isn't allowing MS to patch the OS, which almost invariably requires a reboot.

Rather off topic but of course it can be updated. It's only usually done once a month unless an urgent update is required.


MrEngman

[RaTTuS]

#1 pi - this is used a lot to monitor stuff at work

Code: Select all

 
 uprecords
     #               Uptime | System                                     Boot up
----------------------------+---------------------------------------------------
     1    71 days, 22:59:51 | Linux 3.6.11+             Tue Mar 12 08:37:44 2013
     2    30 days, 05:03:22 | Linux 3.2.27+             Wed Dec 12 12:26:21 2012
     3    27 days, 18:56:43 | Linux 3.6.11+             Thu May 23 17:35:40 2013
     4    22 days, 23:26:51 | Linux 3.2.27+             Sat Nov 17 17:55:38 2012
     5    18 days, 05:55:29 | Linux 3.1.9+              Fri Aug 10 11:23:26 2012
     6    17 days, 00:47:44 | Linux 3.6.11+             Mon Feb 11 16:24:05 2013
     7    13 days, 20:10:25 | Linux 3.2.27+             Thu Sep 20 16:53:12 2012
     8    11 days, 04:54:32 | Linux 3.2.27+             Fri Oct 19 08:39:20 2012
     9    11 days, 03:04:14 | Linux 3.2.27+             Thu Jan 24 13:13:37 2013
->  10    10 days, 17:35:34 | Linux 3.6.11+             Thu Jun 20 17:30:57 2013
----------------------------+---------------------------------------------------
1up in     0 days, 09:28:41 | at                        Mon Jul  1 20:35:10 2013
no1 in    61 days, 05:24:18 | at                        Sat Aug 31 16:30:47 2013
    up   330 days, 19:10:50 | since                     Tue Jul 17 12:46:07 2012
  down    18 days, 03:09:34 | since                     Tue Jul 17 12:46:07 2012
   %up               94.804 | since                     Tue Jul 17 12:46:07 2012

#2 pi this is my general purpose Pi

Code: Select all

uprecords
     #               Uptime | System                                     Boot up
----------------------------+---------------------------------------------------
     1    72 days, 21:43:04 | Linux 3.6.11+             Fri Mar  1 12:24:00 2013
     2    20 days, 21:24:58 | Linux 3.2.27+             Thu Feb  7 12:16:50 2013
     3    13 days, 02:57:41 | Linux 3.6.11+             Thu Jun  6 09:30:02 2013
     4    12 days, 05:36:26 | Linux 3.6.11+             Fri May 17 10:31:54 2013
->   5    11 days, 22:38:29 | Linux 3.6.11+             Wed Jun 19 12:29:41 2013
     6     6 days, 04:43:05 | Linux 3.6.11+             Thu May 30 12:37:07 2013
     7     2 days, 03:19:35 | Linux 3.6.11+             Mon May 13 10:16:49 2013
     8     1 day , 19:55:38 | Linux 3.6.11+             Wed May 15 14:31:09 2013
     9     0 days, 20:13:58 | Linux 3.6.11+             Wed May 29 16:23:02 2013
    10     0 days, 00:10:04 | Linux 3.6.11+             Wed May 29 16:08:08 2013
----------------------------+---------------------------------------------------
1up in     0 days, 06:57:58 | at                        Mon Jul  1 18:06:06 2013
no1 in    60 days, 23:04:36 | at                        Sat Aug 31 10:12:44 2013
    up   142 days, 02:42:58 | since                     Thu Feb  7 12:16:50 2013
  down     1 day , 19:08:22 | since                     Thu Feb  7 12:16:50 2013
   %up               98.751 | since  

3rd Pi - this is my main camera Pi

Code: Select all

uprecords
     #               Uptime | System                                     Boot up
----------------------------+---------------------------------------------------
     1    94 days, 18:18:26 | Linux 3.2.27+             Fri Feb  8 14:57:57 2013
     2    33 days, 19:22:26 | Linux 3.2.27+             Thu Dec 13 15:19:43 2012
     3    30 days, 18:04:22 | Linux 3.1.9+              Fri Jul 20 16:59:35 2012
     4    25 days, 04:38:26 | Linux 3.2.27+             Sun Nov 18 10:41:09 2012
     5    16 days, 17:37:40 | Linux 3.2.27+             Fri Aug 24 16:10:54 2012
     6    14 days, 20:13:22 | Linux 3.2.27+             Fri Nov  2 13:39:18 2012
     7    14 days, 04:09:16 | Linux 3.6.11+             Tue May 28 12:04:26 2013
     8    14 days, 01:01:47 | Linux 3.2.27+             Mon Oct  8 09:33:30 2012
     9    12 days, 23:20:15 | Linux 3.2.27+             Tue Sep 25 10:09:04 2012
    10    12 days, 00:33:04 | Linux 3.2.27+             Thu Jan 24 10:59:02 2013
----------------------------+---------------------------------------------------
->  51     0 days, 00:01:51 | Linux 3.6.11+             Mon Jul  1 11:09:54 2013
----------------------------+---------------------------------------------------
1up in     0 days, 00:19:15 | at                        Mon Jul  1 11:30:59 2013
t10 in    12 days, 00:31:14 | at                        Sat Jul 13 11:42:58 2013
no1 in    94 days, 18:16:36 | at                        Fri Oct  4 05:28:20 2013
    up   337 days, 21:27:27 | since                     Tue Jul 17 11:45:03 2012
  down    11 days, 01:59:15 | since                     Tue Jul 17 11:45:03 2012
   %up               96.824 | since     

2 Tau new pi -

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uprecords
     #               Uptime | System                                     Boot up
----------------------------+---------------------------------------------------
->   1    31 days, 19:04:22 | Linux 3.6.11+             Thu May 30 15:04:25 2013
----------------------------+---------------------------------------------------
NewRec    31 days, 19:04:21 | since                     Thu May 30 15:04:24 2013
    up    31 days, 19:04:22 | since                     Thu May 30 15:04:25 2013
  down     0 days, 00:00:00 | since                     Thu May 30 15:04:25 2013
   %up              100.000 | since     

I also have a Model A which i'm not able to get at right now [as it has no ssh connection]

[Heater]

It must be a strange twilight world that Windows users live in where they find it hard to imagine a computer might actually be able to run more than a day without a reboot.

Luckily the Pi and Linux are here to shed some light into that world of darkened Windows.

Be aware that turning your Pi on and off without shutting it down cleanly will eventually cause total file system corruption. In that respect it's better to just have it on all the time.

Be aware that doing a lot of writing to your SD card will eventually cause total file system corruption. So there will be a limit on your usable uptime depending on what you are doing. For a really reliable system, I would want to have the boot and root partitions mounted as read only and use some other device for volatile data, eg a USB stick or hard drive.

[solar3000]

this is good to know.

my was rebooted after 4 days. It gave me scarey messages.

now lets explain the configuration of those who have their pis running more than a month strait. how about what SD card or where their roots are mounted. what's plugged in. which OS.

[rpdom]

this is good to know.

my was rebooted after 4 days. It gave me scarey messages.

What sort of messages?

[jwlawler]

My Pi commonly runs for weeks or months without a problem. The only two common reasons for stopping it are: the occasional power failure and a deliberate shutdown for software upgrade or a total back up.

Be aware that doing a lot of writing to your SD card will eventually cause total file system corruption. So there will be a limit on your usable uptime depending on what you are doing. For a really reliable system, I would want to have the boot and root partitions mounted as read only and use some other device for volatile data, eg a USB stick or hard drive.

Is a USB drive likely to have a longer life expectancy that an SD card? I had assumed that the guts were fairly similar. I have a USB stick in my Pi but it is not being used for much at the moment.

[ghp]

Hello,

I have a pi running my door-opener software. It is powered by a backup power supply, and runs for 94 days. The only problem is the operator, who regularily reboots for update purpose. In total, it runs now for almost a year on power.

Greetings,
Gerhard

[Bakul Shah]

The hero points still go to QNX. Their salesman told us of one machine that had been running non-stop for seven years, and in that time it had had complete upgrades of both the application and the operating system. (Linux has loadable modules in the kernel which can be upgraded and reloaded without rebooting, but the QNX kernel is all loadable modules.)

On ArsTechnica someone reported they shutdown their Novell netware server after 16.5 years! There is even a picture of the system console showing uptime of 6030 days! I ran my main FreeBSD server nonstop for over two years until we moved across the US! Here it ran for another 10 years but not continuously.

Will RasPis stay up for years while doing plenty of useful work? If you want to try, make sure to minimize disk writes!

[solar3000]

this is good to know.

my was rebooted after 4 days. It gave me scarey messages.

What sort of messages?

corrupt files then "/" went read-only.
reboot and it forced me to manually fsck.

[tvjon]

.......

Be aware that doing a lot of writing to your SD card will eventually cause total file system corruption. .....

I have a dvb-t2 tv tuner attached for testing, & currently use the fiq-split branch. The most reliable, but still glitchy recordings, are to the sd card, often of several gigabytes (hd). No corruption so far from the writes............