
Come and Get ‘Em – Storage Pods That Is - _JamesA_
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/come-and-get-em-storage-pods-that-is/
======
echelon
This is so cool, and it's awesome that they're doing this. Backblaze is
essentially getting "free" waste disposal but is giving back to the community
in doing so. This fosters a lot of goodwill.

Unfortunately I'm nowhere near California, so I'm a bit jealous. Does anyone
know of any companies that do this on the east coast? I'd love "free"
abandoned hardware.

~~~
jopsen
Isn't cheap abandoned hardware readily available at most flee markets, garage
sales, etc?

~~~
rbanffy
It seems like Europeans recycle their electronics much more thoroughly than
Americans.

That makes me a very sad retro geek.

~~~
xnyan
There is lots of recycling and second hand in the united states. I can find a
lot of toasters, very few computer parts. If I were to offer my old tech
parts, I would get very few people who even knew what they were. In a bigger
area like Boston, you can have a healthy exchange, but not in 50,000-people-
ville, USA.

I think what you are lamenting is population density in the US vs EU.

~~~
rbanffy
You have a point. There are a couple million people in Ireland and one working
Tektronix 4014 terminal. I would expect to be a hundred of them in the US,
which doesn't seem that far off ;-)

We should have more DEC terminals though. We had a factory in Galway.

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icelancer
Oh boy. Gonna have a huge RSVP line. I can't believe they thought these would
last eight hours considering they only have about 200 or so from what
employees are saying. There will be a line around the block for 24 hours if
they don't do a form / queue / lottery. The components (without drives) cost
about $1500-2000 each.

~~~
Etheryte
For those interested, this information (~200 units, 2 per person) was shared
on Reddit and wasn't on the original article. As for the time-frame, if they
manage one transaction (giving one person 2 units) per five minutes on
average, they roughly fit into eight hours.

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/bz2yj6/backblaze_g...](https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/bz2yj6/backblaze_giving_away_free_storage_pods/eqqo2tb/)

[2]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/bz2yj6/backblaze_g...](https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/bz2yj6/backblaze_giving_away_free_storage_pods/eqq2941/)

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polartx
I'd love to grab one. Problem is, in the absence of any disclaimer such as
"Max 2 per person", I'm expecting some asshole opportunist to camp out and
take a pallet full to re-sell on eBay.

~~~
icelancer
Yev has said there will be max 2 per person.

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a-wu
Hoooooooo boy I live 6 miles away from the pickup. I think I’ll swing by and
try to grab one. No idea what I’ll do with it but I’m sure I’ll find
something.

~~~
asaph
I have a closet full of random old gadgets that I had no idea what I would do
with before acquiring them. My advice is: if you don't have a plan, leave it
be. Let it collect dust in someone else's closet.

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dawnerd
Wow this is really tempting for me to make the trek down from Portland. I run
a storniator which is pretty similar to their 3.0 pods and the thing is a
beast.

~~~
apkallum
Would you mind elaborating on your Storinator setup?

~~~
dawnerd
Sure, it's quite a few years old at this point but basic specs:

\- Supermicro X10DRL-i

\- Dual XeonE5-2620 v3 @ 2.40GHz

\- 32 gigs ram

\- 32 gig boot stick

\- 512 cache ssd (being upgraded soon to 1tb)

\- 27 8TB drives, one for parity, one currently dead that's waiting a
replacement

Running Unraid which has served me well.

Thing is sitting in a lack table from ikea which this particular model they
stopped making. It has a bottom shelf and came on casters.

One thing I did do right away was replace the stock cpu fans for noctuas since
the server would be right next to me and noise was a big deal. Temps are a
little higher than they would be with the stock fans but still within safe
ranges even under load.

Im almost out of space and I don't really want to upgrade to 10tb drives
yet...

Using it primarily for dev and backup.

~~~
apkallum
That's very interesting, thank you for replying. Do you work in media/video or
such? 200 TB is a lot! Also unraid is interesting, for 30 storage devices it
costs a one time fee of 120 dollars, is that correct?

~~~
dawnerd
Yeah, used to do a bunch of video for a side project, 4k video takes up a ton
of space as it turns out.

And I do believe that's the cost for unraid, can't remember if that's what I
paid.

If I had to build it again I'd probably go freenas.

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Jemm
This is the kind of thing that makes me think i’d Like to work at Backblaze
even though I am not looking for a job.

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dsl
They should have you log in to your Backblaze account and show you are a
customer. :)

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futhey
I just want to see a few blog posts next week and see what people do with
them.

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notatoad
Hey @yev, can you ship me one?

