This Application Note uses a PPM and Power Injection Fixture to test a drive’s Power Loss Protection circuitry. This requires a hot-pluggable host and device, and a local Linux control PC.
We find the brownout threshold of the drive for each rail, then use the PPMs patterns feature to create a ramp around the brownout threshold, with different steps above and below, and different timings of ramp. The next test is to crowbar the rail down to brownout threshold and ground, to perform a harsh test of momentary power loss, or a screwdriver being dropped into a chassis.
These tests are done while idle, and while under a FIO load. We also verify the FIO load to see whether any data loss has occurred, which would indicate PLP might need to be improved on the drive.
