Google Finds DRAM Errors More Common Than Believed

An anonymous reader writes "A Google study of DRAM errors in their data centers found that they are hundreds to thousands of times more common than has been previously believed. Hard errors may be the most common failure type. The DIMMs themselves appear to be of good quality, and bad mobo design may be the biggest problem." Here is the study (PDF), which Google engineers published with a researcher from the University of Toronto.

Comments

clearly not a radiation engineer

[SuperBanana]

That window looked out to a pile of coal, so the culprit was assumed to be low level alpha radiation.

Alpha radiation is stopped by a sheet of office paper. It certainly wouldn't make it through the window, through the machine case, electromagnetic shield, circuit board, chip case, and into the silicon. Even beta radiation would be unlikely to make it that far.

What is much more likely: thermal effects. IE, infrared from the sun heating up machines near the window.