Build a RAID 6 array for $100/TB
Summary: Build your own cloud-style storage for $100/TB that makes Amazon's S3 look pricey. Perfect for ripping 10,000 DVDs to disk!
Imagine storage that didn't cost much more than bare drives. High density storage with RAID 6 - double-fault - protection, reasonable bandwidth and web-friendly HTTPS access.
And really, really cheap.
Not your enterprise's RAID array Raw disk cost is only 5-10% of an enterprise RAID system's cost. The rest goes for corporate jets, sales commissions, tradeshows, sheetmetal, 2 Intel x86 mobos, obscene profits and some pale and blinking engineers in a windowless lab who make it work.
But what if you don't want 4-color brochures or the barely-clad booth babes. What if you just want cheap economical and reliable storage?
You aren't running the global financial system - what's left of it anyway - or a 500 person call center. But you want enough redundancy so it will stay up until morning.
Meet the Storage Pod You aren't the only one. Backblaze, a new online backup provider, designed the Storage Pod for their own use and are sharing it with everyone. They aren't selling it - that's where the build comes from - so they aren't trying to get rich off you.
Here's what it looks like:
Here's an exploded diagram with a simplified BOM:
And then there's the (free) software. 64-bit Debian Linux, IBM's open source JFS file system and HTTPS access. Simply stated each file gets a URL. Put a web server in front of it and serve the world - or just your home.
The Storage Bits take Many applications just need a big bucket that doesn't cost $5,000/TB. This is it.
You can build it yourself, but it is probably more complex than a high-end gamer system. Download the 3D SolidWorks files and have Protocase build you 1 or 500 of the boxes.
But the density is good, the performance is reasonable, the availability is decent and the price is right. This is a DC-3, not a 747. It is all you need for the right application.
And at $100/TB you can mirror all your data 2 or 3 or 4 times if you need more availability - and still be way less than half the cost of name brand arrays. Get the details from the Backblaze blog.
Comments welcome, of course. BTW, I'm trying out their free trial Mac online backup - at least one of the founders worked at Apple - and I'll let you know how it goes. I don't have a business relationship with them either, in case you're wondering.
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Talkback
Is that per terabyte, or
I want one!
RE: Build a RAID 6 array for $100/TB
OpenSolaris has kernel CIFS, too, so this would be a heckuva NAS unit.
--
Dave
Needs more cowbell ! /eom
At last
What monster....
Where can I get the case built?
RE: Where can I get the case built?
RE: Build a RAID 6 array for $100/TB
For years now, Curtis Preston (author of the O'Reilly book "Using SANs and NAS") has said:
Raw disks are cheap. Storage is expensive.
To people who don't understand that statement, I would add the analogy:
Raw carbon is cheap. Diamonds are expensive.
Alternatively, let's start with rocks and sand, and try to figure out how we're going to turn that into tungsten filament and glass, so that we can try many thousands of different ways *not* to make a lightbulb.
That's what Edison did. Do you want to do the same, or do you want to take the fruits of his labor and apply that lightbulb (or some other light-generating source) to some other activity?
Depends on how big the diamond is
Google demonstrated years ago that "storage" doesn't have to be
expensive. Numerous other companies have extended that insight to
the rest of us. Blazeback continues that fine tradition.
Your comments remind me of techies who derided PCs and NetWare
because they weren't up to the standards of minicomputers and
mainframes. How did that work out?
Storage is, without a doubt, the hardest part of computing, because it
is the only piece with a long-term anti-entropic mission. Storage is
fighting the Universe, and the Universe has a lot of resources.
Just as for the last 10 years you could buy a powerful multi-core
server and run (some) free enterprise class apps on a free OS for very
little money, that day is here for storage. Backblaze is using their
storage in production and it works in their application.
It isn't for every app, but as data cools there are more and more apps
that need the capacity without the cost. Home and soho users are
definitely there today.
Robin
I have an idea, I think it can be used for evil though.
Imagine a scenario where an enterprising person could sell anonymous storage space to the mafia or malware company.
They could guarantee that the data would be encrypted and distributed across several pods. The people housing the pods would never have to know what was being stored on them. Data would be hard to track down because it would be travelling to many locations. Drawbacks would include lack of oversight for each pod and lots of latency.
I'm imagining a distributed array of redundant storage on a large scale. The more numerous the pods, the more redundant. Hell, why doesn't our government have one of these in every post office in the country?
Check out Cleversafe
networks.
Very similar to your idea.
Robin
RE: Build a RAID 6 array for $100/TB
I would do it with OpenSolaris or FreeBSD
Maybe it would work now.
Image chips.
Robin
disk scrubbing, encrypted storage
So it seems not very secure to me in two aspects:
1. Your confidential data could be read by 3rd parties; I would prefer both encrypted transfer and encrypted storage.
2. Without disk scrubbing you will get bit errors sooner or later tha can go undetected for a long time. Even raid-6 may run into lost data after a while. ZFS inlcudes mechanisms against such silent data loss, but JFS does not (afaik). Did they implement some proprietary mechanism to protect against this?
RE: Build a RAID 6 array for $100/TB
RE: Build a RAID 6 array for $100/TB
RE: Build a RAID 6 array for $100/TB
RE: Build a RAID 6 array for $100/TB