What’s the Longest‑Running Computer? Real‑World Server Uptime Stories

On Zhihu a question sparked a lively discussion about the longest continuously running computers, prompting users to share remarkable uptime stories.

01 Zhihu friend: Luo Jian

A state‑owned telecom data center in a province has a Red Hat Linux 5.4 server that has been in service since 2009, achieving 14 years of continuous operation; brief power incidents were survived thanks to dual‑grid supply. The friend also mentioned a 24/7 base‑station device designed for 20 years, but its details are confidential.

02 Zhihu friend: Bai Wuya

An Antarctic research‑station computer (286/386 era) is still running. Another server the friend has seen has been online for over 20 years, never rebooted, running DOS 5.0 with a legacy database. The original installation media are lost, so only disk copies are possible, and staff are reluctant to stop the service.

03 Zhihu friend: BG6CQ

Two Linux servers, moved to a new data center in 2007, have never been rebooted. One provides a school network authentication portal, the other a PPTP VPN server. Both run a 32‑bit kernel; the uptime counter overflowed after 497 days and reset to zero.

04 Zhihu friend: Da Yang

A personal server has been running for nearly three years without interruption.

05 Zhihu friend: hihahuha

A Windows 2003 database server installed around 2005 ran continuously until a power outage during the pandemic caused the UPS to fail; the server has not been powered on since.

06 Zhihu friend: Zhizhe Bu Zhi

In the current production environment a device has been running for 4 822 days, which is more than 13 years.

07 Zhihu friend: Rearc

A Sun 280R Solaris 9 server logged 3 737 days (about 10 years) of uptime. Another anecdote mentions a Sun server that allegedly ran for 19 years before a power loss.

08 Zhihu friend: penddy

The Guinness‑style record shows Voyager 2’s command‑computer system has been operating for nearly 47 years, with continuous operation since its launch in August 1977; by 29 Oct 2020 it had run 43 years and 70 days. Voyager 1’s computer has also been running for 46 years without replacement.

09 Zhihu friend: scim

A server with 3 269 days of uptime and two HP RX8640 machines that each logged over 3 000 days before retirement.

10 Zhihu friend: Liang Le

A operations professional emphasizes the principle “if it works, don’t touch it.”

11 Zhihu friend: Lan De Qin Kuai

A humorous claim that the massive online game “Earth Online” server has an uptime exceeding 4 billion years.