1. nTOF DAQ status D. Macina (EN-STI-EET) Acknowledgements: EN-STI-ECE section: A. Masi, A. Almeida Paiva, M. Donze, M. Fantuzzi, A. Giraud, F. Marazita, P. Peronnard Special thank to Alvaro for his support during the transition phase D. Macina, nTOF Analysis Meeting, 25-27 February 2015 1

2. What’s new Additional 48 channels (SP Devices) with higher ADC resolution and wider buffer memory New HV Power Supply for EAR1 (CAEN SY 4527) Local storage of 80 TB to be shared between the two areas (30 times more than in the past) Improved data transfer and handling at CASTOR o New protocol for transferring data (the old one not supported anymore) o New scripts for handling the data transfer o Additional resources from the IT Department A number of new features o Remote controlled switch for the beam/calibration trigger o New remote control of the sweeping magnet o HV, sweeping magnet control from the GUI o ….. D. Macina, nTOF Analysis Meeting, 25-27 February 2015 2

3. Digitizers available for the 2015 run All cards and crates have gone through preventive maintenance and all channels tested in the lab Card ModelNumber of cards & channels ResolutionMax buffer size Max sampling rate EAR1 Max Time window & min. neutron energy 1.0 GS/s0.5 GS/s SP Devices ADQ412 (4 ch.) 12 cards 48 channels 12 bits175 MS/ch1.8 GS/s175 ms 6 meV 350 ms 1.5 meV Acquiris DC282 (4 ch.) 7 cards 28 channels 10 bits32 MS/ch*2.0 GS/s32 ms 180 meV 64 ms 45 meV Acquiris DC240 (2 ch.) 4 cards 8 channels 8 bits16 MS/ch2.0 GS/s16 ms 718 meV 32 ms 180 meV Acquiris DC270 (4 ch.) 8 cards 32 channels 8 bits8 MS/ch1.0 GS/s8 ms 2.87 eV 16 ms 718 meV * The exploitation of the full memory size is actually limited by the bus transfer data rate shared among all cards in the old crate (100 MB/s). A solution to this problem is under investigation D. Macina, nTOF Analysis Meeting, 25-27 February 2015 3

4. Proposal for the initial card distribution EAR1 DetectorType# of channels PKUPDC240 (8bits, 16MS/ch) or DC270 (8bits, 8MS/ch) 1 SILIADQ412* (12 bits, 175 MS/ch)4 MGASADQ412 (12 bits, 175 MS/ch)4 C6D6ADQ412 (12 bits, 175 MS/ch)4 TAC (test new VD) ADQ412 (12 bits, 175 MS/ch) + some DC282 (10bits, 32 MS/ch) 8 Ionization Chamber ADQ412 (12 bits, 175 MS/ch)2 (?) PPACDC240 (8bits, 16 MS/ch) + DC270 (8bits, 8MS/ch) DC282 (10bits, 32MS/ch) 50 EAR2 DetectorType# of channels PKUPDC240 (8bits, 16MS/ch) or DC270 (8bits, 8MS/ch) 1 SILIADQ412 (12 bits, 175 MS/ch)4 MGASADQ412 (12 bits, 175 MS/ch)4 MGASADQ412 (12 bits, 175 MS/ch)4(+4) C6D6ADQ412 (12 bits, 175 MS/ch)4 3He,CeBr, others.. ADQ412 (12 bits, 175 MS/ch)4 PPACDC282 (10bits, 32MS/ch)16 * The ADQ412 cards are very delicate and should be moved as less as possible  6 new cards in EAR1 (both for reaching thermal n and for resolution) and 6 in EAR2 (for resolution)  3 DC282 cards in EAR1 and 4 in EAR2  the rest according to needs D. Macina, nTOF Analysis Meeting, 25-27 February 2015 4

5. Data transfer to CASTOR(1) With the new cards we have the possibility to write 20 times more data per event: are we able to handle it? nTOF resources in IT as of today: o ~100TB of Castor disk space (shared with other experiments from time to time) o 2.5 PB of data on tape o A share in the batch system of 1.6 KHS06 (HepSpec2006=benchmark unit for CPU processing) corresponding to about 140-150 concurrent running nTOF jobs in the batch system o In the last year nTOF was producing ~800 TB => rate 50 MB/s (considering 200 days of running time) Any increase in the average data rate between factor 6 and 20 implies an upgrade of the IT resources with heavy implications both from the budget point of view and visibility point of view (monitoring from scrutiny groups etc) D. Macina, nTOF Analysis Meeting, 25-27 February 2015 5

6. Data transfer to CASTOR (2) An increase of the average data rate of a factor 3 can be handled with an upgrade of the IT resources which is feasible for this year and reasonable from the budget point of view. In particular: o Upgrade on the CASTOR side (no cost for nTOF): 300TB of dedicated CASTOR disk space Increase of the CPU capacity to 4 KHS06 3PB of data can be moved to tape o Upgrade on the network connectivity (20 kCHF): Proposal We go for the 3x upgrade and we see how good we can handle data transfer during peak and normal periods in 2015. Effective zero suppression (or similar) routines will help in handling “long lasting peak periods” Local storage EAR1 Local storage EAR2 CASTOR Ethernet link (1 Gbit -> 10 Gbit) GPN ~ 200 MB/s With the actual Ethernet link of 1 Gbit we are limited to a data transfer rate of ~ 90 MB/s D. Macina, nTOF Analysis Meeting, 25-27 February 2015 6

7. Status & Planning Upgrade Ethernet link will be done in mid March New control system for the sweeping magnet ready by the end of March Software is 90% complete, now extensive debugging is needed Thorough test of all cards and new functionality in the laboratory until 15 March: o Pulses from pulse generator o Digitizers settings from GUI o Data checked via the event display (and compared to what is seen on the oscilloscope) o Data sent to CASTOR (dedicated disk is being setup by IT) o New on-line diagnostics of the DAQ channels and Data transfer o Data transfer optimization towards the local storage to be able to acquire events every 1.2 s Second part of March: o Installation of all cards in both areas o Installation of the new HV crate in EAR1 o New extensive tests including detector calibrations WEB pages will be finalized in the next few weeks Once DAQ commissioning is finished, we may look at possible improvements (for example adding on line monitoring of important quantities like beam intensity etc..) D. Macina, nTOF Analysis Meeting, 25-27 February 2015 7

8. Thank you for your attention D. Macina, nTOF Analysis Meeting, 25-27 February 2015 8