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What are the odds of file corruption?

By Antoni @Xetroc
    2023-06-22 20:29:33.170Zassigned to
    • @cghague

    Hi there. So i own one tiny pilot with the pro licence, that i used to hold a chair in a company.

    I haven't been away for more than a week to do a hard test in it's strength;

    That said i have 2 questions, and please be frank haha;

    1 - what are the odds of the sd card corrupting the files and cease my access when im away?

    2 - is it safe to let it on for long terms? i have experience with professional KVMs before that been 2 years without being powered off want to know if it is ok? im not so familiar with the lifespan of raspberry devices.

    I will be away for 3 months, no one in the company is tech savvy enough to flash the sd card again, and set tailscale up.

    Thank you;

    • 7 replies
    1. @fft2023-06-23 05:24:44.050Z

      Hi @Xetroc,
      puhh, I just could guess what made the SD card corrupt, and I can tell it happens very rarely. What I would do, if I where you:
      a.) Install a new SD card, configure it for your network, boot it, test it. THAN use balenaEtcher App to make as many micro SD card copies from this micro SD card to feel comfortable for your 3 month away period. I would not recommend any SD card over another, but "some" well known sd card brands might do the job to have a save trip, and as always if one is prepared: They will never be used :-) (As I do not know tailscape, I hope this SD card copy works, but this is also something I would test, before leaving.)
      b.) Will TinyPilot (raspberry) last for 2 years continuos running: Usually "yes", but my random sample I have is too small. If you ask for your 3 month trip: If major importand I would buy a second TinyPilot, and prepare it with the sd cards from above. In case **it happens, someone can just replace it. See it as a health insurance. In germany it is mandatory to have one, but I am always happy, if I do not need to use it :-)

      The above is not TinyPilot specific, as I really doubt it is a TinyPilot specific problem. If leaving for a longer time period, I always like to have some redundancies. And to me TinyPilot having double is worth the potential trouble you get, if you cannot access it. If I where a sales person, I would recommend even more :-) TinyPilots.

      I hope I could help you.

      have a save trip

      thanks
      Juergen

      1. B
        In reply toXetroc:
        @barrym
          2023-07-10 17:15:00.262Z

          I’ve been running mine non-stop for 1.5 years now and it’s been great. With that said, I have a few recommendations for handling when things go wrong and you need someone else to do stuff for you.

          Label The Cables
          Get a bunch of small rolls of colourful and uniquely different sticky tape or stickers from your local craft/hardware store. 3M makes this stuff, but there are others.

          Use it to decorate the TinyPilot’s cables and ports to indicate where they plug into the TinyPilot and the PC. Take a few pictures of the setup so you can describe every aspect of the physical connection.

          Instead of “Can you unplug the black cable from the black box?”, you can say to someone on the phone “See the cable that has the red and gold stars? Can you unplug that and put it back in the same port that has the same red and gold stars above it? Here’s a picture for what that looks like”.

          Ready To Go Backup SD Card
          Prepare a backup SD Card with the exact same software level totally pre-configured and confirm that it works. Tape that to the side of the TinyPilot in a small envelope or bag. Write some instructions and include pictures you took for Step 1 of where the SD card is, how to get it out, and plug it back in.

          1. Jjsas @jsas75
              2024-05-31 16:33:57.551Z

              I have spare SD Cards (4 of them) set up with Tailscale. I had to replace one of them today (with a helping hand). Everything is labeled. SD Corruption happened 4 times so far for me in 9 months. So, yes it is frequent. But I have some "helping remote hands" if I am traveling. This is not an enterprise-grade device. Don't expect it not to fail, just make it easy for non-experts to help you fix things. I went the extra mile of having an entire Tinypilot as a spare.

              1. Hi Jsas, thanks for sharing this with us. I'm sorry to hear that you've encountered filesystem corruption so many times; that's not the experience we want to offer. Filesystem corruption is usually a rare occurrence, so I'd like to look into this and find out why your TinyPilot device seems to be so severely affected.

                Would you be happy to provide me with a link to your debug logs? You can do this by going to System, then Logs, then Get Shareable URL. It'd also be really helpful if you could let me know whether your TinyPilot device is using USB-C or PoE as a power source?

            • C
              In reply toXetroc:

              Hi Antoni, thanks for reaching out with your question about filesystem corruption.

              I can see that @fft and @barrym have provided great responses to this already, and I fully support their suggestion of preparing a backup microSD card. A backup microSD card will make it easier to recover your TinyPilot device; however, if filesystem corruption is a particular concern, I’d strongly recommend enabling the read-only filesystem, which will drastically reduce the amount of wear on the microSD card and thus reduce the chance of corruption happening in the first place.

              1. Aa7673 @a7673
                  2024-06-16 20:13:23.580Z

                  @cghague I have followed this tutorial. https://tinypilotkvm.com/faq/read-only-filesystem/

                  How do I check the status of Read-Only-FileSystem is enabled?

                  1. Hi a7673, thanks for your question about the read-only filesystem.

                    On TinyPilot Pro 2.5.2 or newer, you can check the state of the read-only filesystem by going to System, then Logs, and then looking in the log preview for the following text:

                    Read-only filesystem: on