"Steinar H. Gunderson" wrote:
> There are two problems with this approach. First, entropia.com will need
> some HD space to hold these files (they are big...). Second, they will
> also need bandwidth to receive all those big (and not very compressible)
Personally, I think the big problem with regards to this is not people
quitting so much as the possibility of major hard-drive failure etc. on the
testers. I doubt many of them keep good backups (And the client is supposed
to run undisturbed, anyway) and with a test taking anywhere from year to two
it's bound to become an increasily common experience for somebody's
hard-drive to give up the ghost, or an error/virus wipe the drive clean, and
the person running the test not only lose the work but probably take their
anger out on PrimeNet once they learn there's no way to recover the work.
The transfer bandwidth and storage space are another problem. An idea I've
been toying with is extending the concept of "distributed computing" to
include "distributed storage". It poses it's own problems, but none seemingly
unbeatable. In essence PrimeNet would ensure that at least two machines have
the intermediary file (at most month old) at any time. In practice this would
be a new choice in the PrimeNet communications section for "Accept backup
work". The main problem comes when trying to solve the bandwith question -
best would be for the clients to exchenge the backups direct, but this would
need some extra work, assuming the clients were simultaneously online etc.
Also one would have to ask what would be the incencitive for someone to act
as a backup server... or prevent them from "stealing the work" as it were, by
using high-speed computers to finish the test a month before the main person
does in hopes of getting the prize.
-Donwulff
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