[Gb-ccb] An external CCB USB connector?

[Martin Shepherd]

While writing up the backup/restore procedure for the CCB, it occurs
to me that backing up the CCB and restoring it to other CCBs could be
a significant headache in the future, as things stand currently. In
all cases, to do this one currently has to undo all of the bolts
around the top of the CCB, and then either backup in-place, over the
net, by plugging in a USB CDROM drive with a live-CD, and performing a
dump of the microdrive over the network to a remote computer, or
alternatively temporarily dissasemble the computer card-stack, remove
the microdrive and place it in a workstation flash-card reader to
perform the backup/update.

I'm thus wondering if it might be worthwhile to add a small access
plate with a USB socket behind it, to the front panel of the CCB. The
access plate would be bolted in place, for shielding, when the CCB was
on the telescope. To backup or update a given CCB, we would then
remove the few bolts holding this plate in place, in order to plug in
a CDROM drive with a live-CD in it. One would then boot the CCB from
the live-CD, and use its dump program to backup or update the
microdrive to/from a disk on another computer. This could probably be
done on the telescope, during maintenance sessions.

In addition to easing the logistics of backups, this would presumably
reduce wear and tear on the bolts and gaskets of the lids of the CCBs.

Note that I'm not anticipating frequent changes that need to be backed
up. So it may not be that important.

Martin