meteohub.de

Hello everybody,

This is my first visit to this forum.

I have a Davis VP2 with a Davis USB logger. Thinking of MeteoBridge hw versions in parallel.

Somewhere I have read, but cannot find that any longer, that there are some situations when PRO or NANO versions are better than PRO RED?
Maybe something about "loop back", or resendings, or such?

For almost 20 years I have been running VP+ and VP2+ with very little data loss, but I want to be even better. Thinking of running Davis console, to PC in parallel with MB PRO/RED/NANO direct to web. Each "line" would eventually save data to a MySQL/MariaDB database. I already have the tools to compare and impute any missing data.

Cheers,

Bagtjesen

I guess "better" or "best" is a matter of definition and/or context.
If performance and database size (e.g. after import of historical data, minute based data recording/archiving) matter,
then Meteobridge on the RaspberryPi (e.g. RPi 4B 2 GB + 16 GB SLC storage) are in my experience the best choice.
Especially the performance of the RPi is far beyond the other hardware options.
The other options can in a rather short time easily reach their limit.

Thanks for the response gyvate!

Yes, I understand your point of view regarding hardware, and I have more than a douzen RPI in several generations. 3 in the last generation.
Some are for handheld use in forestry use. However, they draw more power also. My purpose with MB, eventually, is to have steady redundancy - nothing much fancy. A thing to do what that thing is supposed to do.

I basically want parallel data from my Davis VP2+, when I need power, for analyzing my weather data, I use much bigger computers and huge software. That software barely runs on a RPI. On a Windows PC it runs 40-50 times faster - at least.

So my question was about the small differences between NANO, PRO, and PRO RED, and what may affect chances to get the data, even if one half of my imagined system would crash, or after long power outages. Yes I have a big UPS, but in the countryside an outage can be a day or more. The Davis console can keep data for 24 hours, but which MB is better at retrieving that data?

Cheers,

Bagtjesen

I don't have a NANO SD, "only" 2 MB Pro and a MB on RPi.
Retrieve data they (including the NANO) can all equally well.
But when it comes to the size of the growing local database and the amount of sensors you have and depending on in which intervals you are going to archive (minute based, hour based, day based) or even want to log more than one station (MB supports up to 5 stations) - and maybe use extensively other functions of a MB like posting data, then NANO and MB Pro fast reach their performance and capacity limit.
The MB Pro has 1 GB internal storage for the database - factually it's less - some 900 MB.
I was running the MB with 2 stations and 40 sensor values (direct and calculated) per archiving interval to be stored and the MB Pro reached its limits fast. I had to go back to one station per MB Pro and meanwhile the 1 GB threshold has been reached after 2 years. Not to speak of the performance.
It's rather slow. But looking at the hardware it's to be expected.
In parallel I run a RPi4 2GB on a 16GB microSD and have neither space nor performance issues. The database is now 1.5 GB large. It's backup take less than 2 minutes. The MB Pro takes up to 6 minutes for half the size of a DB - and during that time all other interaction is blocked. As I do a backup hourly ... Whereas with the RPi it all goes smoothly, fast response times etc.

Of course, if you have only few sensors, want hourly archiving intervals etc. a MB Pro or NANO SD will do well.
The minute based archiving was introduced only last year (as was the multi-station functionality) and NANO SD and MB Pro are older devices.

From what I hear and read the NANO SD is the least performant, then comes the MB Pro and then the MB on RPi (where it doesn't need to be a RPi4, a RPi3(+) or earlier will probably also do fine (and will also be slower than the RPi4).

As said at the start - it depends on your use case.

And - at the end of the day - it all comes down to the hardware - the software is the same for all three devices.
https://www.meteobridge.com/wiki/index.php/Hardware

The key things to focus on is power and data archive. Relying on anything mains power/PC/UPS driven is going to fail regardless of UPS size. Set the systems up as if they were a remote/off grid system with staged LVD concentrating on at least maintaining basic system operation with some data retention/recovery.

The MB data retrieval should not be reliant on the Davis console, these should be independent of each other. The Davis console can keep data for more than 24 hours depending on the archive interval, does the Davis archive need to be so fine? One needs to look at the long term worse case scenario, would a 10 or minute archive interval be better than no data at all? However the USB logger is really a weak link in the overall context except for maybe longer term/longer archive interval data storage.

Thanks gyvate and Mattk,

Yes I understand what both of you wrote and now has a better perspective on the limitations of the hw differences. In my case I need 1 minute intervals, because I have special interest in fast weather changes. The Swedish metoffice, SMHI, asked for "fast" data already almost 20 years ago, but has not made much of it themselves. But on my previous location I got over 8 million minute records, which I continue to study, since all sw tools have improved so much the last years. However, since the ws net here is very far between stations, it is still troublesome to study fast events - you dont know what happens in between two ws. So more stations should really save data by the minute.

Well, you have given me some things to ponder upon - thanks for your input!

Cheers,

Bagtjesen

Then I would be ditching the USB logger (& PC), using a NanoSD in the console and creating/store locally and uploading 1 minute data records at whatever time frame required. This would require a local router which might need to be sacrificed (disconnected/powered down) depending on power capacity but again the primary power needs to be a multiple of mains/solar and battery. As long as you can maintain the console & NanoSD during restricted power then at least the data archive is being stored locally until full power is resumed.

Thanks Mattk,

I will consider that.

Cheers,

Bagtjesen