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AWS Snowcone

aws.amazon.com

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Re: AWS Snowcone

#71

Post by sradman »

aketchum wrote: post #13

I must not interact with big enough data to understand, but what is the point of this? I have watched/read several of the Snow product descriptions from AWS and I am still not quite sure I understand the point. It seems like a way to sync local big data to AWS cloud storage for data that is too large to realistically transfer via the internet. So is this simply a sneakernet external harddrive because physically shipp…

The video [1] quickly lists a number of use cases.

> Explore the new AWS Snowcone with Bill Vass and Jeff Barr (2:46)

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RNRssCiR_E&feature=emb_rel_...

Re: AWS Snowcone

#72

Post by banana_giraffe »

N_A_T_E wrote: post #60

All of this makes sense to me, except I have no idea how they fit 100tb of capacity in a box that small. Aren't HDDs maxing out around 16TB these days? They couldn't fit 6 drives in there.

You can fit 100tb in a Snowball, not the Snowcone, which maxes out at 8tb.

Having dealt with a few Snowballs from time to time, there is zero doubt they have space in those things for 100tb. They're not small or lightweight devices.

I'm super happy to see this device. It fills a niche a lot of my work falls into nicely.

Re: AWS Snowcone

#73

Post by Twirrim »

aketchum wrote: post #13

I must not interact with big enough data to understand, but what is the point of this? I have watched/read several of the Snow product descriptions from AWS and I am still not quite sure I understand the point. It seems like a way to sync local big data to AWS cloud storage for data that is too large to realistically transfer via the internet. So is this simply a sneakernet external harddrive because physically shipp…

I can speak to part of the rationality around Snowball:

The old method of customers sending in hard disks and AWS importing them turned out to be _incredibly_ high touch.

* Customers would put the wrong labels on the wrong drives. Given they were encrypted, and the label details were critical to matching the right disk with the right encryption key, that was a big issue.

* Imports would routinely fail due to all sorts of driver bugs both on the AWS side, and on the customer side. The number of fringe NTFS quirks was phenomenal, let alone all the wide range of other formats that had to be handled

* Encryption tooling still really isn't all that user friendly. Too many opportunities for mistakes.

* Drives would get damaged during shipping.

* Stuff would go missing in shipping.

It just didn't scale as a solution, and caused unending customer pain and frustration.

Snowball solves _all_ of that, by taking out of the equation almost anything about the process that customers could get wrong. It handles all of the encryption stuff, is extremely ruggedised, has basic tracking. The label is an e-ink display that automatically contains all the right information. It becomes a "just works" solution.

Re: AWS Snowcone

#74

Post by est31 »

duskwuff wrote: post #65
est31 wrote: post #54

So you need to have Windows or Mac OS in order to use this? No love for Linux? https://aws.amazon.com/en/snowcone/resources/

If you're on Linux, you're probably perfectly happy to use the `aws` command-line tools. No need for fancy graphics. :)

Didn't know they supported it as well. Thanks!

Re: AWS Snowcone

#75

Post by acdha »

aketchum wrote: post #13

I must not interact with big enough data to understand, but what is the point of this? I have watched/read several of the Snow product descriptions from AWS and I am still not quite sure I understand the point. It seems like a way to sync local big data to AWS cloud storage for data that is too large to realistically transfer via the internet. So is this simply a sneakernet external harddrive because physically shipp…

It's sneakernet optimized to deliver direct to S3, with full end-to-end integrity checks. Depending on the amount of data you have and your internet connectivity, this can be significant optimization — for example, say, you work with professional photography or video but live in the United States where only a small fraction of people have an uplink speed greater than 10-30Mbps even if their download speeds are 500+Mbps. If you can generate 8TB of data in less than a month, this is faster and doesn't interfere with all of your other network usage.

Re: AWS Snowcone

#76

Post by ryanisnan »

ryanisnan wrote: post #70

Hey Jeff, curious what the battery life of this device is? I'm on a team that has a need for remote compute power, but getting to our devices on anything more frequent than a monthly basis is sometimes a challenge.

Answered my own question! Thanks for posting! Has some cool applications for sure, but too much draw for set it and forget type of operations.

Re: AWS Snowcone

#77

Post by reaperducer »

akersten wrote: post #21

This must be where all the traded-in Kindle screens are going. I was surprised Amazon was willing to pay me $25 for my 7-year-old Kindle, but I guess it's cheaper than manufacturing new eInk displays. Maybe I'm a germophobe, but isn't it kind of gross that this thing is shipped in no container and then put on your desk?

Maybe I'm a germophobe, but isn't it kind of gross that this thing is shipped in no container and then put on your desk?

How long do germs last on an e-ink display?

I know on paper and cardboard and such it's not very long. From what I can remember, they die while still in the mail stream.

If you're concerned, hit it with some Lysol or soap and water.

Re: AWS Snowcone

#79

Post by opless »

txcwpalpha wrote: post #47
opless wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hardware failures on amazon. “Someone else’s problem” That’s what you’re paying for on any cloud provider. Any hardware problem isn’t your problem and it (should be) abstracted away.

That's true for hardware that's actually "in the cloud" (aka at an AWS data center) where a hardware failure simply results in your workload automatically shifting to other hardware. But if a Snowcone breaks on you, it still certainly is your problem, because you're the one that now has a physical brick in your office and you need to find a replacement hardware for whatever you were previously using Snowcone for.

My bad. I didn’t actually read the article!

Re: AWS Snowcone

#80

Post by teraflop »

N_A_T_E wrote: post #60

All of this makes sense to me, except I have no idea how they fit 100tb of capacity in a box that small. Aren't HDDs maxing out around 16TB these days? They couldn't fit 6 drives in there.

If they really wanted to fit 100TB in a box that size, they could probably do it with flash. It would just be ludicrously expensive.
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