cool behind the scenes of an online storage vendor

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Tue Oct 05, 2010 10:50 pm

Backblaze is one of the more popular online storage solutions out there and they are very open about their design...pretty cool.

http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/pe ... d-storage/

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Tue Oct 05, 2010 11:05 pm

Pretty much what I would have done if I started a back-up company. Kudos to them for doing it smart.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Wed Oct 06, 2010 3:36 am

Pugsley · Post by **Pugsley** » Wed Oct 06, 2010 9:48 am

Well once i flatten out the 3d model into a bunch of 2d parts, I can laser cut them and make me a copy of that case. When you think about it, that is a good price for the capacity. I think of how much i spent on my file server, and for about 7x the cost have 14x more storage space.

Not that i need that much space. I still have about 1.5 TB free.

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Wed Oct 06, 2010 10:39 am

Realistically, you could get the same results for much less if you scrap the innards of any 4U case & just recreate the two frames that hold the drives. You could skip the backplanes & mount the drives with the connectors facing up & run cables instead leaving the drives to rest on the floor of the case. True, it'll be messier, but for DIY, it's a great way to go.

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Wed Oct 06, 2010 10:43 am

Personally though, I'd just as likely drill holes on the bottom of the case & mount 30 drives sideways because honestly, it's much easier than making the racks (for me). Top that off by the fact that it would enable the use of a 3U & possibly even a 2U case.

Pugsley · Post by **Pugsley** » Wed Oct 06, 2010 7:22 pm

well the drives just sit on top of the back planes any ways. held in place by gravity. I might just get some backplanes and make some nice little 5 drive boxes to stack on a normal computer.

CaterpillarAssassin · Post by **CaterpillarAssassin** » Wed Oct 06, 2010 7:32 pm

lol i have trouble filling a 1tb drive .pretty neat though. thanks.

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Wed Oct 06, 2010 8:31 pm

well the drives just sit on top of the back planes any ways. held in place by gravity. I might just get some backplanes and make some nice little 5 drive boxes to stack on a normal computer.

I'd be with you on that, but backplanes are so expensive. Hard to find multiple drive ones for under $30-40.

lol i have trouble filling a 1tb drive .pretty neat though. thanks.

Sadly, I have filled a couple TB so far & if I ever do what I hope to do (load ISOs of all my DVDs onto hard drives), I'm gonna need quite a few more TB (especially since I'm going RAID 1).

Pugsley · Post by **Pugsley** » Thu Oct 07, 2010 8:31 am

I run 5 1g drives in raid 5 in my server. gives just under 4tb of semi safe storage.