[thaumasiotes]

> but when the period would be something like 50 years I don't think it's actually a problem

I think you have that backwards. If something needs to be done every week, it will get done every week. That's not a problem.

If something needs to be done every fifty years, you'll be lucky if it happens once.

[tom_]

My parting shot was slightly tongue in cheek, apologies. Fifty years is a long time. The process, whatever it is, will have been replaced or otherwise become irrelevant long before the period is up. 64 bits will be sufficient.

[gpderetta]

At some point a random bitflip becomes more likely than the counter overflowing.

[reincarnate0x14]

I agree with that sentiment in general but even though I've seen systems in continuous operation for 15 years, I've never seen anything make it to 20. I wouldn't write something with the external expectation it never made it that far, but in practical terms, that's probably about as safe as it gets. Even like embedded medical devices expect to get restarted every now and again.

Just as an example the Voyager computers have been restarted and that's been almost 60 years.