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AWS Snowcone

aws.amazon.com

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Re: AWS Snowcone

#181

Post by re »

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.

It sounds like the device does not have an internal battery so it depends on the capacity of the battery that you attach to it.

https://aws.amazon.com/snowcone/features/

> For a light workload at 25% CPU usage, the device can run on a 65 W battery for approximately 6 hours.

The docs are a little inconsistent on wattage requirement. The feature page above says "60 W+ (20 V) USB-C power adapters", but in the docs:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/snowball/latest/snowcone-guide/s...

> any USB-C power adapter that is rated for 45W+

Re: AWS Snowcone

#182

Post by a012 »

voxic11 wrote: post #172
ramraj07 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was the premium of storing the data in S3 as opposed to keeping it in your own tape warehouse? Definitely curious about the cost benefits!

S3 Glacier Deep Archive is probably the closest to a tape warehouse, at the standard rate it would cost $99000/month to store 100PB of data. $0.00099 per GB per month * 100,000,000 GB = $99000

You need to account data transfer OUT if you need to get your data from S3. _If_ you could download 100PB data, it'd cost you $1M.

Re: AWS Snowcone

#183

Post by code4tee »

Just think of all the “snow” products as a modern version of sneaker net (it used to be faster to run down the hall with a disk than transfer files over the network because networks used to be really slow).

The snow products solve the same issues. Despite fiber connections and such it just doesn’t make sense to transfer massive volumes of data over the network. It’s often literally faster and cheaper to ship a box of hard drives via UPS or FedEx.

Snowball was for big sets of files and is the size of a suitcase. Snowmobile is for petabyte scale and is literally a tractor trailer full of disks.

The use case here seems to be more towards remote situations with smaller data. You have something that collects a lot of data and need to get that into your cloud. Instead of running around with a bunch if portable hard drives and then having someone transfer the data manually to S3 over the internet you just dump your data into the snowcone and hand it to your local UPS guy and let AWS take care of the rest. Lots of remote data collection devices and such would fit into that model.

Clearly the use case is rather specific but for people in the business of collecting data on stuff and then needing to get it into the cloud this is actually a nifty little device.

Re: AWS Snowcone

#184

Post by re »

3pt14159 wrote: post #90
t0mas88 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The speed is questionable in many countries where consumer internet connections already have 500mbit upload speed. But in the US I think bandwidth can be quite limited if you're not in a major city with fiber. The other big part is pricing. AWS charges $ 0.09 per GB for outbound transfer, so getting 8 TB of data out of AWS via the internet costs over $ 700. Doing it through Snowcone costs around $ 300 + shipping. Rea…

It never ceases to amaze me that people pay that much for transfer. It's one tenth the price on DigitalOcean and it isn't like this is comparing two different types of things.

If you have data that you're unlikely to need to access (i.e. backups), not many providers can compete with Deep Archive storage pricing.

4TB on S3 Deep Archive: $3.96/mo to store, $360 to restore and download over the internet 4TB on B2: $20/mo to store, $40 to download 4TB on Digital Ocean: $80/mo to store, $30 to download

Yes, it feels almost extortionary to have to pay that much to get your data out of AWS. But depending how long you store data for, it can end up being the cheaper option: you're just gambling on how likely you are to actually need to download it.

Re: AWS Snowcone

#185

Post by peterwwillis »

Oh, fun! When a good Chinese manufacturer duplicates the form factor, someone can ship clones of these laden with malware for spear-phishing attacks on corporate, industrial, and classified networks.

> I connect the Snowcone to the power supply and to my network, and power up! After a few seconds of initialization, the device shows its IP address and invites me to connect:

With a convincing e-Ink display, and an unusually long delay, you've probably got a good 10 minutes on this local network to 0-day your way into routers and client machines.

> Next, I download AWS OpsHub for Snow Family, install it, and then configure it to access the device. I select Snowcone and click Next:

By this point you make the device self-brick and print out an error about how it needs to be sent back to Amazon for repairs, due to being banged up during shipping. Extra scuffs or dents in the case will sell this. While the replacement is ordered, use your now client-resident malware to exfiltrate data as you like, since you know there's data worth them copying offline. Or trojan up every data format you see so that after the data is moved out via a working Snowball you can eventually find an internet-connected device to exfiltrate with.

Re: AWS Snowcone

#186

Post by airstrike »

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'm thinking defense / electronic warfare. All the data we'll be collecting in the field needs to travel back to a data center somehow. Not sure what the rules of the game for on vs. off-premise storage in that scenario, but I still think this is one of the main demand drivers

Re: AWS Snowcone

#188

Post by ckrailo »

claytoneast wrote: post #108

The e-ink display part triggers thoughts of an Amazon of the future that uses entirely reusable boxes to ship things to consumers. Hard plastic containers w/ e-ink labels. Boom, no more millions (billions? trillions?) of cardboard/plastic boxes used to enclose packages. Still millions/billions/trillions of boxes/plastic packaging for the items themselves, but at least the transit envelope would be reusable.

It'll happen eventually... just attach wheels and some AI like this company: https://www.starship.xyz/

Re: AWS Snowcone

#189

Post by p0rkbelly »

3pt14159 wrote: post #162
binaryblitz wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DO is incredibly limited in terms of products compared to AWS.

Yes but this is just data storage. I get it if you need to be on network, yadda, yadda, but so many people just senselessly use S3 and rack up bills that are easily avoidable.

Digital Ocean Spaces doesn't have the same durability designs of S3. Or performance in terms of TPS. It's not apples to apples.

DO is great for small personal projects, but, I wouldn't run a fortune 500 company on it.

Re: AWS Snowcone

#190

Post by Aperocky »

allzeros wrote: post #179
Aperocky wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think it's not so unfriendly. I have a stock trader friend who keeps all of his transaction records in S3 buckets, and he's not a 'techie'. It's akin to having an understanding in file system - just that it's in the cloud this time. I'm sure a lot of non-techie understand enough about file systems to work what they needed it to do. And the same goes for the cloud.

I wish people would stop thinking of S3 as a filesystem because it isn't, and in ways that can cause serious issues. I can't tell you how many questions I get from devs asking "how do I rename a file in S3?" You can't. They're not files. It's not a filesystem. The folders you see on the web interface are just sugar, but if you have only a superficial knowledge of S3, you might be tricked into believing it behaves lik…

You're exactly right, but non-techies doesn't distinguish nearly as much - file systems or S3 buckets is just a place to drop stuff and get them later/ or not. In this case, conincidentally, non-tech people have much less barrier to the concept, because they never really understood file system in the first place. They understood it enough to make their own stuff work, and honestly that's good enough for them.
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