BOINC - bad to reformat computers without detaching projects?

[VirtualLarry]

I have decommissioned or formatted several of my computers, that I used to crunch on, and I never remember to detach the BOINC projects. Is this bad? I'm sure that they keep track of each installed computer. (Do they use a hardware hash, so if I ever re-installed to that same PC, I would get the same ID?)

Just wondering if this is a bad habit.

 

[EagleKeeper]

I know that any download files in preparations for future work will be lost.

How long will it take for that data to be garbage collected and re-issued...

 

[VirtualLarry]

I run it out of WUs before I decommision a system. I just don't remember to detach.

 

[Ken g6]

Do they use a hardware hash, so if I ever re-installed to that same PC, I would get the same ID?

I don't think so. To map a reinstallation to an old PC in the past I've had to manually tell the server to map the old number to the new.

If you have no work left over I think it's no problem. Besides, PCs die on occasion, and BOINC needs to be able to handle that too.

 

[Rattledagger]

I run it out of WUs before I decommision a system. I just don't remember to detach.

If you set all projects to "no new work", finish everything and report everything, it doesn't matter if you're not detaching from the projects. A BOINC-project never gets any message about detaching anyway.

As for getting the same host-id, where is some server-tests for if it's an old computer or not, so as long as it's the same OS, computer and possibly also requires same computer-name, it should most likely be detected as the same computer. Atleast if you just detach & re-attach from a project without deleting the BOINC data-directory you'll normally get the same host-id.