A high-throughput data acquisition system for the HyperCP experiment

The data acquisition system of the HyperCP experiment at Fermilab recorded about 50 TB of data on 12 000 tapes in 1997. The system recorded data at a sustained throughput of 12 MB/s typically and was capable of a maximum rate of 16 MB/s. The front-end electronics systems read 20 000 channels and achieved a typical readout dead time of about 3 μs per event, allowing operation at a trigger rate of 75 kHz with less than 30% dead time.