67TB in 4U for under $8000

This is really nice. I just wish that they wouldn't compare this product to enterprise products that are proven and have much more performance and options. I don't see how you can compare a consumer hardware based system with non-hot swaps, non redundancy, to a full san solution being offered by EMC or IBM.
 
Minus the comparisons that they do, that is a very good blueprint for a DIY home setup. It would be really nice if they made that case and rails available to buy instead of having to machine one yourself.
 
This is really nice. I just wish that they wouldn't compare this product to enterprise products that are proven and have much more performance and options. I don't see how you can compare a consumer hardware based system with non-hot swaps, non redundancy, to a full san solution being offered by EMC or IBM.

For the price they're doing it for, if a drive fails, you just toss out the entire machine and swap in another one. :)

I kind of hope that case doesn't become available, it would be too tempting.
 
I wonder what kind of read/write performance this thing would actually get with that many port multipliers and PCIe cards?
 
Nice to see that they didn't skimp out on the PSU like so many other servers I've seen.

Hmmm, wonder if a hot-swap version was possible.
 
nice, some good ideas. That case with hotswap would own. although you would probably have to sacrifice some hdd density or make it 5U to fit hotswap.

On a side note I think I'm going to signup for their service and backup my file server, $5/month for unlimited data storage is hard to beat. Inital upload would be PITA but after that it would be about 150-200gb/month
 
Yea im gonna try it.

Cheaper than Mozy.....seems legit.

I might even setup my dads business for it.
Right now he takes an LTO3 home everyday, and half the time the backup restore test fail....so its gotta be an improvement.
 
I guess they are banking on the fact that most people simply can't upload x amount of data due to connection sizes.
 
This is really nice. I just wish that they wouldn't compare this product to enterprise products that are proven and have much more performance and options. I don't see how you can compare a consumer hardware based system with non-hot swaps, non redundancy, to a full san solution being offered by EMC or IBM.

Much like Google these people realize that the high cost systems don't solve their problems as well as a low cost system.
 
compared to google container things, this is highend
makes you wonder how even the bigones go low
but considering single box is nolonger priority, its been backuped several times and has more than two redundancys ...
so when you come to think about boxes as building blocks of huge building ... one brick, two bricks or dozen bricks offline doesnt make a dent
 
Wow those are sweet, the problem I see is the shitty sata cards they use. Here are links for the cards.
(3) Syba SD-SA2PEX-2IR
(1) Addonics ADSA4R5
I would love if they made a hardware raid version using an Areca 1680ix-24 and an expander or two, the price would only go up around 2 grand which would still be an awesome price.
 
nice, some good ideas. That case with hotswap would own. although you would probably have to sacrifice some hdd density or make it 5U to fit hotswap.

On a side note I think I'm going to signup for their service and backup my file server, $5/month for unlimited data storage is hard to beat. Inital upload would be PITA but after that it would be about 150-200gb/month

I've been thinking about that, but I don't think that they would go for that... seriously. If I wanted to come and backup 30tb of data, I think they would have an issue with it... thats me consuming half of that machine or 4k worth in hardware... not to mention, I'm tied to a multi gig internet connection, so I'll be able to saturate a good portion of their bandwidth.

I just don't see how they make money. The only guess is that they hope people only upload 5-100gigs worth of stuff.


Either way, give it a try and let us know, if they don't complain, then I might consider that because it's cheaper than me buying hardware.
 
Either way, give it a try and let us know, if they don't complain, then I might consider that because it's cheaper than me buying hardware.

+1, I would love to read a [h]ard review on it. Looks legit to me too.

EDIT: Decided to "waste" time and get it a try.
 
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+1, I would love to read a [h]ard review on it. Looks legit to me too.

One thing that Im unsure of is, they dont mention support for Server OS's
Do you think their software intentionally wont install on server2003 because they dont want businesses backing up 100's of TBs?
 
I was wondering the same exact thing. There is still ways around that, transfer through your desktop ;)
 
I was wondering the same exact thing. There is still ways around that, transfer through your desktop ;)

There are always ways around everything.
But i would rather not do a bunch of gymnastics to get it done.
 
Found this here, at the bottom:

https://www.backblaze.com/index.html


Code:
Look, I'm an Advanced User, and I Already Have a Set of RAID Drives with Perl Scripts to 
Copy My Files Back and Forth Between My 18 Home Machines that are in a Datacenter 
I've Built in My Closet. Why Do I Need Backblaze?
Congratulations! It sounds like you're passionate about backup—and so are we. 
In fact, you may even want to send us a note on the jobs page. But we still think 
you should try Backblaze's online backup because it's automatic, will save your 
data remotely, and is really inexpensive.
 
ewww port multipliers

Other than that, pretty cool idea espesially for home users. Now if only they would make a version that uses SAS. It really wouldn't be too much more expensive when considering the price of the whole package.
 
ewww port multipliers

Other than that, pretty cool idea espesially for home users. Now if only they would make a version that uses SAS. It really wouldn't be too much more expensive when considering the price of the whole package.

Must be a pain in the ass when one of the drives in there eventually fails. :eek:

My understanding is that they are not using each box as a seperate array.
Each box is really just a building block for one massive array.
So if a drive fails or all the drives fail they just pull the one box.
 
I was wondering the same exact thing. There is still ways around that, transfer through your desktop ;)

No support for network drives, so good luck on that part. Its an exclusion only file picker, so get ready to click to high heaven on all the millions of files we don't want to send thru our lil bitty internet pipes. There's no good folder picking options either, so have at it clicking each individual file. If you have lotsa gigs, prepare to wait on the order of weeks to upload, after you've spent days clicking files. Oh and there's 4GB file limit.

They give you an unlimited upload because it actually will take forever to backup your "server" and when you go to recover your server, you either download it which could take a till next year or you pay them 100 bucks for a 4GB dvd, or pay for a 500GB HD at 180 bucks or such.

I found some other stuff on them and was like uh-oh. One user had data loss because their server broke, and guess what??? They couldn't recover the data, lol. They wanted him to pay to re-upload the data too.
 
Some first impressions:

(1) I really do not care for the client, and the fact that you HAVE to backup C: (main drive MUST be backed up) I needed up removing all the folders on C: that wanted to backup, I already keep a copy of the very little data I store on my main computer.

(2) It will only detect local drives on the machine, not mounted shares, so backing up my server for example, would be a pain (I really do not want a client on my server)

(3) This is one of the things I read online that looked legit for the company.

(4) I also read the TOS and could not find anything specific on say 8TB of backup, they just say, for the community good, so it is a bit vague...
 
No support for network drives, so good luck on that part. Its an exclusion only file picker, so get ready to click to high heaven on all the millions of files we don't want to send thru our lil bitty internet pipes. There's no good folder picking options either, so have at it clicking each individual file. If you have lotsa gigs, prepare to wait on the order of weeks to upload, after you've spent days clicking files. Oh and there's 4GB file limit.

They give you an unlimited upload because it actually will take forever to backup your "server" and when you go to recover your server, you either download it which could take a till next year or you pay them 100 bucks for a 4GB dvd, or pay for a 500GB HD at 180 bucks or such.

I found some stuff on them and was like uh-oh. One user had data loss because their server broke, and guess what??? They couldn't recover the data, lol.

4GB file limit?

See ya later
 
No support for network drives, so good luck on that part. Its an exclusion only file picker, so get ready to click to high heaven on all the millions of files we don't want to send thru our lil bitty internet pipes. There's no good folder picking options either, so have at it clicking each individual file. If you have lotsa gigs, prepare to wait on the order of weeks to upload, after you've spent days clicking files. Oh and there's 4GB file limit.

They give you an unlimited upload because it actually will take forever to backup your "server" and when you go to recover your server, you either download it which could take a till next year or you pay them 100 bucks for a 4GB dvd, or pay for a 500GB HD at 180 bucks or such.

I found some other stuff on them and was like uh-oh. One user had data loss because their server broke, and guess what??? They couldn't recover the data, lol.


Hmmmppf, always a catch :(
 
That limit is in a drop down box on exclude, makes me wonder if they support larger files in a non-trial or if it is an up-coming feature.

Looks like it's a permanent thing.

I did a little more research, the backups are painfully slow, people report 3 weeks to backup a standard computers files.

Anything over 2gb is throttled down even more. One user reported 2 months to backup 180gb.

Also wont do a lot of file extensions such as .dmg for example.


Count me out also.
 
The Backblaze service is designed to protect the files you care about. Thus, we will keep a remote backup of any file that exists on your computer. Just in case, Backblaze will even keep multiple versions of that file for up to 30 days. However, Backblaze is not designed as an additional storage system when you run out of space. So, please don’t try to upload your external hard drive to us and delete your data off your drive…or we will delete those files from our servers as well.
So what if your external drive fails? What if you migrate stuff from one external to another, and get rid of the older external?
Wouldn't they delete your stuff? Would you have to re-upload each time you upgrade external drives?

edit, nevermind, found it
 
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etwork (NAS) drives, remotely mounted computers or volumes, or shared volumes do not get backed up. The reason for this is not technical, but a business decision. Backing up mounted or network drives can easily be abused. A user could mount the 10 or 20 computers in their home or small business and back them all up to one account for $5/month. We are evaluating a service that would backup NAS drives for a small per GB fee.

Backblaze works best if you leave the external hard drive attached to your computer all the time. However, Backblaze will backup external USB and Firewire hard drives that are detached and re-attached as long as you remember to re-attach the hard drive at least once every 30 days. If the drive is detached for more than 30 days, Backblaze interprets this as data that has been permanently deleted and securely deletes the copy from the Backblaze datacenter. The 30 day countdown is only for drives that have been unplugged. There is no countdown for local files.


Haha, what a rip off. So you have to keep their crap software installed and their crap software has to keep scanning your computers and ticks on 30 days.
 
Haha, what a rip off. So you have to keep their crap software installed and their crap software has to keep scanning your computers and ticks on 30 days.

Crap software, I could not agree more. I have 100+ GBs on another drive is directly attached to my main box, we will see how long that takes to backup.
 
Interesting. very Google-Style.

A few things stuck out though:
-They probably should look into using GP/LP drives instead of the rather fast 7200.11's as the port multipliers will be killing off the drive speeds anyways.
-Using a PATA 80GB boot drive? Why bother with PATA? Why not use the spare SATA port on one of those cards OR one of the ICH10 sata ports for a SATA boot drive?
-Using two power supplies like this isnt a good idea. The rails on each PSU WONT be exactly the same voltage and there will be power flowing between the 2 power supplies, and possibly THRU components! They should at LEAST have some reasonably heavy duty cables tying the 12v and 5v rails of each power supply directly together.

Some other things:
-Software RAID and Port Multipliers DONT scare me. Think about the use here. Low IOPs, and reasonable bandwidth expectations. They arent trying to run huge SQL DB's of this stuff, they just want to store data. I think their solution fits the problem very well.
-It is nice to see that they are using a plenty fast enough processor for the RAID parity calcs. (3.33 Ghz Core2Duo)
 
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I'm not sure these guys know what they are doing. The 1.5 TB 7200.11's they use in RAID are notorious for having problems in RAID mode. It's just about the worst drive to pick for this application.

And the 3132's have 120 MB/s limits for performance, which can't even max out a PMP. You could use a Marvell 88SX7042 based controller ($80-100) which supports FIS mode for PMP operation and can max out speed wise.

At least they use a decent GbE controller, though that Intel board is G31 based and has some limitations because of that.

It's good to know though - I can tell friends to avoid using their service.
 
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