My guess is: Summer-holidays. People go on vacation, turn their systems off. Schools turn all their systems off for the holidays. Quite normal to find such a dip between June and October.
I guess it's a combination of reasons. Other reasons may include a higher awareness for energy costs, and an ongoing trend to replace desktop machines with laptops. Many people are then reluctant to use their laptops for BOINC, for fear of wearing out components that intuitively appear less robust than desktop components (especially disks and fans). If you are using a quality laptop, this fear should be unfounded, tho. In general laptops should make great crunchers as they are more energy efficient.
The rather long workunits on E@H probably also took a toll on the active hosts statistics, for more than one reason:
First, some people didn't like them, and prefered other projects with smaller WUs. Second, the workunits now can take as many as three weeks (that's the deadline) to complete, and the statistics the graph you mentioned is based on counts only those hosts as "active" that have send a sign of activity within the last 7 days. So there will be a certain amount of hosts that are no longer counted as active because they report less frequently than 7 days. They keep dropping in and out of the statistics but are out most of the time.
The end of S5R2 has seen many "monster" WUs, so the number of hosts that are busy for more than a week without reporting increased recently, leading to a "virtual" drop of active hosts.
The next run, S5R3, which will start in a couple of days, will return to much shorter workunits, BTW.
I guess it's a combination of reasons. Other reasons may include a higher awareness for energy costs, and an ongoing trend to replace desktop machines with laptops. Many people are then reluctant to use their laptops for BOINC, for fear of wearing out components that intuitively appear less robust than desktop components (especially disks and fans). If you are using a quality laptop, this fear should be unfounded, tho. In general laptops should make great crunchers as they are more energy efficient.
The rather long workunits on E@H probably also took a toll on the active hosts statistics, for more than one reason:
First, some people didn't like them, and prefered other projects with smaller WUs. Second, the workunits now can take as many as three weeks (that's the deadline) to complete, and the statistics the graph you mentioned is based on counts only those hosts as "active" that have send a sign of activity within the last 7 days. So there will be a certain amount of hosts that are no longer counted as active because they report less frequently than 7 days. They keep dropping in and out of the statistics but are out most of the time.
The end of S5R2 has seen many "monster" WUs, so the number of hosts that are busy for more than a week without reporting increased recently, leading to a "virtual" drop of active hosts.
The next run, S5R3, which will start in a couple of days, will return to much shorter workunits, BTW.
CU
BRM
I would guess you are both right ... several contributing factors.
I cannot say it is the same across all BOINC projects, as I only crunch Einstein and S@H. The same fall is reflected there. But that is also due to their flakey equipment, ATM.
Shih-Tzu are clever, cuddly, playful and rule!! Jack Russell are feisty!
Keep in mind that as computers get faster...fewer hosts will be needed to process the same amount of data...I am sure some crunchers are replacing slower computers with newer...faster models...or upgraded computers...This does not account for all of the decrease...but it may account for some of it.
why is the number of active hosts decreasing?
)
My guess is: Summer-holidays. People go on vacation, turn their systems off. Schools turn all their systems off for the holidays. Quite normal to find such a dip between June and October.
I guess it's a combination of
)
I guess it's a combination of reasons. Other reasons may include a higher awareness for energy costs, and an ongoing trend to replace desktop machines with laptops. Many people are then reluctant to use their laptops for BOINC, for fear of wearing out components that intuitively appear less robust than desktop components (especially disks and fans). If you are using a quality laptop, this fear should be unfounded, tho. In general laptops should make great crunchers as they are more energy efficient.
The rather long workunits on E@H probably also took a toll on the active hosts statistics, for more than one reason:
First, some people didn't like them, and prefered other projects with smaller WUs. Second, the workunits now can take as many as three weeks (that's the deadline) to complete, and the statistics the graph you mentioned is based on counts only those hosts as "active" that have send a sign of activity within the last 7 days. So there will be a certain amount of hosts that are no longer counted as active because they report less frequently than 7 days. They keep dropping in and out of the statistics but are out most of the time.
The end of S5R2 has seen many "monster" WUs, so the number of hosts that are busy for more than a week without reporting increased recently, leading to a "virtual" drop of active hosts.
The next run, S5R3, which will start in a couple of days, will return to much shorter workunits, BTW.
CU
BRM
RE: I guess it's a
)
I would guess you are both right ... several contributing factors.
I cannot say it is the same across all BOINC projects, as I only crunch Einstein and S@H. The same fall is reflected there. But that is also due to their flakey equipment, ATM.
Shih-Tzu are clever, cuddly, playful and rule!! Jack Russell are feisty!
Keep in mind that as
)
Keep in mind that as computers get faster...fewer hosts will be needed to process the same amount of data...I am sure some crunchers are replacing slower computers with newer...faster models...or upgraded computers...This does not account for all of the decrease...but it may account for some of it.