Soak testing involves testing a system with a significant load extended over a significant period of time, to discover how the system behaves under sustained use.

For example, in software testing

Software testing

Software testing is an investigation conducted to provide stakeholders with information about the quality of the product or service under test. Software testing can also provide an objective, independent view of the software to allow the business to appreciate and understand the risks of software...

, a system may behave exactly as expected when tested for 1 hour. However, when it is tested for 3 hours, problems such as memory leak

Memory leak

A memory leak, in computer science , occurs when a computer program consumes memory but is unable to release it back to the operating system. In object-oriented programming, a memory leak happens when an object is stored in memory but cannot be accessed by the running code...

s cause the system to fail or behave randomly.

Soak tests are used primarily to check the reaction of a subject under test under a possible simulated environment for a given duration and for a given threshold. Observations made during the soak test are used to improve the characteristics of the subject under test further.

In electronics, soak testing may involve testing a system up to or above its maximum ratings for a long period of time. Some companies may soak test a product for a period of many months, while also applying external stresses such as elevated temperatures.

This falls under stress testing.

See also

• Stress testing (software)
  Stress testing (software)
  In software testing, stress testing refers to tests that determine the robustness of software by testing beyond the limits of normal operation. Stress testing is particularly important for "mission critical" software, but is used for all types of software...
  
  
• Sniff test
• Smoke test