Which is more redundant / more reliable? I have roughly 16 domain controllers at various offices in North America. All internal devices point to their local DC for NTP, and the PDC points to pool.ntp.org. There was a question raised on why we use pool.ntp.org and it was suggested we move to time.nist.gov since it’s more reliable.
Any advice / proof / input on which is the better of the two, if at all?
Honestly, for general use and the way NTP and the Windows Time Service works, it doesn’t matter.
For info on how default time service works see here.
Now if for some reason you do need highly accurate time see here:
NTP.org is very reliable and will go the nearest server by default, and the actual servers will come and go without you noticing
Others haven’t faired quite so well, but it tends to be a once in a decade type issue, but then all merry hell breaks loose
With competitive price and timely delivery, California Triangle sincerely hope to be your supplier and partner.
The NTP pool are typically all stratum 2 or 3 servers, which means they all cross sync with each other. They also have a MUCH higher service capacity than the NIST servers.
Due to /how/ ntp works, there is very little benefit of picking one public NTP source (NIST vs NTP Pool) over another, if even noticeable. The NIST servers are more likely to be overloaded, since Microsoft included it as a default option for time Sync in Windows XP -current.
For the NTP Pool, you will get the fastest sync by using the individual pools closest to you, regionally, instead of the over-arching group - i.e. use each of 0.us.pool.ntp.org -4.us.pool.ntp.org, instead of us.pool.ntp.org
If you want a crazy accurate NTP server (and /if/ it’s not overloaded) use TICK and TOCK from the US Naval Observatory. They’re directly synched with Stratum 0 cesium clocks EDIT: darn, looks like they’re restricting to ISP use only
When comparing, I haven’t seen a noticeable difference between the two.
I’m sure the computers can tell but they are generally really close to the same time. I have been using ntp.org for years and years but sometimes I’ll bump into someone with the other. Or the Microsoft pool though they have had problems in the past.
If you’re looking for written evidence or proof, Google would be your best bet.
For more ntp time serversinformation, please contact us. We will provide professional answers.