

Petabytes on the cheap - wglb
http://ha.ckers.org/blog/20100721/petabytes-on-the-cheap/

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ErrantX
As someone essentially in charge of petabytes of storage; one of these will
not safely, securely or successfully do the job alone.

I used to use this method with normal 4U server chassis and 20 x 1.5TB hard
drives. Multiple issues and availability problems have meant now we use
multiple 2U chassis with 4 x 2TB drives to serve the same job.

It works out cheaper in the long run :)

(It works for Backblaze because they essentially have the same thing but
scaled up massively)

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jackfoxy
The "custom metal case" seems to be kind of a stumbling block. How is a
hobbyist, or anyone else for that matter, going to get one of these? The
article does mention the vendor <http://www.protocase.com/> and a contact
person there, but would backblaze be willing to let others use their design? I
don't think it's included in the cost.

EDIT: Doh! Just had to open my eyes. Protocase says they offer the BackBlaze
case on their home page. You have to email them for a quote.

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delano
Direct link: [http://www.backblaze.com/petabytes-on-a-budget-how-to-
build-...](http://www.backblaze.com/petabytes-on-a-budget-how-to-build-cheap-
cloud-storage.html)

~~~
jerf
Which is the story from last September about cheap cloud storage.

They list 45 1.5TB drives at $120.00 each in their parts list, for $5,400 of
the total. A quick poke around at Newegg and I am surprised to find the price
equation hasn't changed that much. You can get slightly better bang/buck with
2TB drives but it isn't a knock-down win.

~~~
gwern
<http://forre.st/storage#sata> says you can get 1.5TB (new) for $80. That's a
significant percentage lower than $120.

(And $53 (!) if you don't mind used.)

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ghshephard
I find it supremely ironic the following statement, "It almost doesn’t make
any cost sense to outsource your storage to the cloud with those cost savings.
It really can be cheaper to bring it in house" being linked to a company whose
purpose is to outsource your storage (in this base, backups) to the cloud.

Yes - I know that most of us backing up our 400 Gigabyte hard drives to
backblaze aren't really in the same space as those people who really have
petabytes of storage, but, Ironic nonetheless.

~~~
mmelin
Only if you're trying to sell cloud storage on price.

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bsdsean
One power supply for the motherboard and 3 banks of drives, one power supply
for the rest of the drives. So either power supply fails and you're down.
Obviously you would need to buy them in pairs. The article doesn't mention the
cost of interconnecting all this stuff. I also wonder if they have thermal
issues. It doesn't look great for storage of data that is frequently used, but
for archival storage that is less hassle to access than tape.

