An Evening on the Petabyte with David 60
Hello folks. I had planned to drop the August DJ Show episode Monday for An Evening on the Fireside, but Youtube is pulling some major chebs (chebs are described on the episode) and only taking one of the three videos. Fear not, I’ll try to get it up by next Monday.
I have found something else for this week’s Evening. 67 terabytes for less than 8 grand.
You can read the whole article here http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/petabytes-on-a-budget-how-to-build-cheap-cloud-storage/ from backblaze
Backblaze offers storage for only $5 a month. Here are some excerpts from the article, oh and instructions on how you can make your own.
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At Backblaze, we provide unlimited storage to our customers for only $5 per month, so we had to figure out how to store hundreds of petabytes of customer data in a reliable, scalable way—and keep our costs low. After looking at several overpriced commercial solutions, we decided to build our own custom Backblaze Storage Pods: 67 terabyte 4U servers for $7,867.
No One Sells Cheap Storage, so We Designed It
Before realizing that we had to solve this storage problem ourselves, we considered Amazon S3, Dell or Sun Servers, NetApp Filers, EMC SAN, etc. As we investigated these traditional off-the-shelf solutions, we became increasingly disillusioned by the expense. When you strip away the marketing terms and fancy logos from any storage solution, data ends up on a hard drive. But when we priced various off-the-shelf solutions, the cost was 10 times as much (or more) than the raw hard drives. Here’s a comparison chart of the price for one petabyte from various venders:
http://blog.backblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/cost-of-a-petabyte-chart.jpg
The result is a 4U rack-mounted Linux-based server that contains 67 terabytes at a material cost of $7,867, the bulk of which goes to purchase the drives themselves. This translates to just three-tenths of one penny per gigabyte per month over the course of three years. Even including the surrounding costs—such as electricity, bandwidth, space rental, and IT administrators’ salaries—Backblaze spends one-tenth of the price in comparison to using Amazon S3, Dell Servers, NetApp Filers, or an EMC SAN.
What Makes a Backblaze Storage Pod
A Backblaze Storage Pod is a self-contained unit that puts storage online. It’s made up of a custom metal case with commodity hardware inside. Specifically, one pod contains one Intel Motherboard with four SATA cards plugged into it. The nine SATA cables run from the cards to nine port multiplier backplanes that each have five hard drives plugged directly into them (45 hard drives in total).
http://blog.backblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/backblaze-storage-pod-main-components.jpg
Above is an exploded diagram, and you can see a detailed parts list in Appendix A at the bottom of this post. The two most important factors to note are that the cost of the hard drives dominates the price of the overall pod and that the rest of the system is made entirely of commodity parts.
A Backblaze Storage Pod Runs Free Software
A Backblaze Storage Pod isn’t a complete building block until it boots and is on the network. The pods boot 64-bit Debian 4 Linux and the JFS file system, and they are self-contained appliances, where all access to and from the pods is through HTTPS. Below is a layer cake diagram.
http://blog.backblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/backblaze-storage-pod-software-layer-cake-diagram.jpg
Appendix A: Detailed Backblaze Storage Pod Parts List
Item
Qty
Price
Total
1.5 TB SATA Data Drive
Seagate ST31500341AS 1.5TB Barracuda 7200.11 SATA 3Gb/s 3.5″
45
$120.00
$5,400
4U Enclosure
Custom Designed 4U Red Backblaze Storage Pod Enclosure
1
$748.00
$748
760 Watt Power Supply
Zippy PSM-5760 760 Watt Power Supply with Custom Wiring (see below)
2
$270.00
$540
Port Muliplier Backplanes
Chyang Fun Industry (CFI Group) CFI-B53PM 5 Port Backplane (SiI3726)
9
$42.00
$378
3.3 GHz Intel Core 2 CPU
Intel E8600 Wolfdale 3.33 GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor
1
$280.00
$280
2 Port PCIe SATA II Card
Syba SD-SA2PEX-2IR PCI Express SATA II Controller Card (SiI3132)
3
$35.00
$105
4 Port PCI SATA II Card
Addonics ADSA4R5 4-Port SATA II PCI Controller (SiI3124)
1
$70.00
$70
Motherboard
Intel BOXDG43NB LGA 775 G43 ATX Motherboard
1
$85.00
$85
Case Fan
Mechatronics G1238M12B1-FSR 120 x 38 mm 2,800 RPM 12V Fan
6
$13.60
$82
4GB DDR2 800 RAM
Kingston KVR800D2N6K2/4G 2×2GB 240-Pin SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
1
$50.00
$50
80 GB PATA Boot Drive
Western Digital Caviar WD800BB 80GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100 3.5″
1
$38.00
$38
On/Off Switch
FrozenCPU ele-302 Bulgin Vandal Momentary LED Power Switch 12″ 2-pin
1
$30.00
$30
SATA II Cable
SATA II Cable, 90 Degrees/straight with Locking Connectors
9
$2.00
$18
Nylon Backplane Standoffs
Fastener SuperStore 1/4″ Round Nylon Standoffs Female/Female 4-40 x 3/4″
72
$0.17
$12
HD Anti-Vibration Sleeves
Aero Rubber Co. 3.5 x .500 inch EPDM (0.03″ Wall)
45
$0.23
$10
Power Supply Vibration Dampener
Vantec VDK-PSU Power Supply Vibration Dampener
2
$4.50
$9
Fan Mount (front)
Acousti Ultra Soft Anti-Vibration Fan Mount AFM02
12
$0.40
$5
Fan Mount (middle)
Acousti Ultra Soft Anti-Vibration Fan Mount AFM03
12
$0.40
$5
Nylon Screws
Small Parts MPN-0440-06P-C Nylon Pan Head Phillips Screw 4-40 x 3/8″
72
$0.02
$1
Foam Rubber Pad
House of Foam 16″ x 17″ x 1/8″ Foam Rubber Pad
1
$1.00
$1
TOTAL
$7,86
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Well folks, I hope you all found that as interesting as I did. Have a good day
