Today I setup h1daqfw2 as a platform to test a new frame writer for use after O4.

For the fw hardware I repurposed h1digivideo3 which is an older Xeon server with 10 cores and 64GB of ram.  I added 2x2TB old hard disks in a RAID 0 config (to improve the write performance).  At this point I am not looking to do any mid to long term storage of frames.

I did not connect this up to the data stream via dolphin.  Instead I am running a new instance of cps_xmit on h1daqnds0 and using that over a new dedicated 1g link to h1daqfw2.  I've updated the puppet config for h1daqnds0 to make this a persistent change.

At this point I am running the new frame writer on h1daqfw2, and it is producing frames.  I need to do some more configuration (mainly around the run number server) so the frames will be identical to those output from the other frame writers (the difference should be in metadata in the frame headers, not the recorded data).  In simulated data setups I have produced frames that are byte for byte identical to daqd frames so it is fairly likely that after I get that working I will see identical frames.

The point of this frame writer is to move towards a auto-reconfiguring/restartless system that is able to adjust on the fly to channel changes, remove some other limitations in the daqd, and to become the ngdd projects frame writer for downstream derived data products.

The first things I will look at with this is memory and cpu requirements under the H1 load.

This testing will be ongoing.