In article <ll5ijv0l79aqb1stjl0on0oi703pktsh7n@4ax.com>, 
j.g.kent@markusplace.com says...

On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 11:08:06 +0200, "FalconFly" <falconfly@ewetel.net>
wrote:

You have about 48 hours (max.) to return them, in order to get the Results into the
scientific Database.

Unless the Client expires, you'll indeed always get credit in the Stats, but cacheing too
long makes the Results useless
Absolute max. I would stive for is less than a week, e.g. 3-4 days.

Hold on here....  48 hours before becoming invalid?  Then how can you
simultaneously suggest a three or four day cache?  That seems
logically inconsistent, because every one of those units would be
worthless.  

Your assertion about the 48 hour liimit to get into the scientific
database is a bit hard to believe, because a lot of people are still
running machines that take that long to do a single unit.  If these
are all invalid that effort is utterly pointless and a waste of their
time, electricity, and all the work unit management effort at SETI
that supports these users.

Jim, here's the FAQ from SETI:

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/faq.html#q1.17
"What is an "optimal" cache size to avoid returning obsolete results? 
Caching is now more popular than ever. (See our add-ons page for some of the 
more popular caching programs.) In general, a 1-month cache isn't bad in 
terms of redundant results, but a 7-day cache is much better. An "optimal" 
cache (minimizing the likelihood that a result will have already passed 
integrity testing before you return it), however, shouldn't hold more than a 
2 days of workunits. In the past, 1 month was pretty safe, but the 
ramifications of Moore's Law have made the cache window much smaller. Keep in 
mind, of course, that excepting the above case, redundancy is extremely 
important for testing the integrity of our data. Interestingly, even without 
cacheing, users on average will receive a duplicate workunit (one they've 
processed before) about once every 500 times. "


Mike
-- 
"All my friends can't be wrong!"
Remember, stupidity runs in herds.