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Storing 25 petabytes of Megaupload data costs us $9,000 a day

arstechnica.com

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Re: Storing 25 petabytes of Megaupload data costs us $9,000 a day

#71

Post by sukuriant »

bshep wrote: post #28
sukuriant wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people have legitimate files on MegaUpload. They can no longer access them. Should they be able to get those files back somehow?

People with legitimate file can't access them now anyway, this would not change that. I'm just proposing a way out for Carpathia while the case is decided in court.

Correct, but perhaps after this ends, MegaUpload could return the legitimate files. I don't expect the government to do the same. And I very, very much do not expect the MPAA to do the same.

Re: Storing 25 petabytes of Megaupload data costs us $9,000 a day

#72

Post by coderdude »

stfu wrote: post #35
citricsquid wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data is being held (from what I understand) as part of an FBI investigation. The MPAA may be responsible for the case existing and bringing the supposed crime to light but the FBI are the people trying the case and this is beyond the MPAA now. The responsibility lies with the government agencies.

The FBI, as MPAA's minions, should be the ones paying it. Either their "confiscate" the data or they do not. If they do, they have the responsibility to keep it up, if they do not, they should have to give it back to its "owner".

Unwitting puppets perhaps, but I doubt the people of the FBI want very much to be dealing with copyright drama. That's like fixing bugs in form code to them. It must feel like a complete waste of their time and talent.

Re: Storing 25 petabytes of Megaupload data costs us $9,000 a day

#73

Post by notatoad »

DanBC wrote: post #8
moonboots wrote: post #3

For reference, this amount of data would require 190 backblaze storage pods ($7,384 for 135TB) totaling $1.4 million.

Is that pre- or post- Thailand flooding prices? (Have drive prices settled down again?) And is there any redundancy included in your figures? (25 petabytes / 135 terabytes == about 190 pods)

prices have settled down as in they are fairly stable now, but a terabyte still costs roughly double what it did before the flooding.

Re: Storing 25 petabytes of Megaupload data costs us $9,000 a day

#74

Post by AJ007 »

xymostech wrote: post #19
anon808 wrote: post #6

It sucks, but that's the price of doing business. They chose their customer, and now are (unfortunately) tied to consequences. Same thing happens to building owners who have a crime committed by a tenant, the leased space becomes a crime scene until the police/govt are done with their investigation.

But instead of just losing use of those servers, they have to actively maintain them. It looks like they just want someone to pay for the $9000 per day that it costs to keep the servers running, they aren't looking for money that they lost from not being able to use the servers. To go with your analogy, sure building owners aren't allowed to rent the space back out, but they most certainly not asked to pay for usual…

The owner still has grounds, building maintenance, carrying costs from a mortgage, etc. Obviously the loss would differ from a strip mall with 10 tenants vs a giant commercial building with 2.

Third parties get f'd in criminal cases all the time. One of the asset seizure stories the WSJ recently covered involved a guy whose cash happened to be in transit with an armored car company. That was, until the companies assets were seized by the feds along with his cash.

Lucky for Kim Dotcom, New Zealand let him get a hold of some of his cash for living expenses. I'm not sure he'd be so lucky in the US. Carpathia probably should have had an insurance policy for this.

Re: Storing 25 petabytes of Megaupload data costs us $9,000 a day

#75

Post by rarrrrrr »

VikingCoder wrote: post #70

Help me out with the math here: 1 terabyte costs them $128.41 per year, right? Amazon S3 would cost them roughly $444 per year, if they were using the Reduced Redundancy Storage. The cheapest HD that I see on pcpartpicker (in terms of Price/GB) is the Western Digital Caviar Green 2.5 TB (5400 RPM) for $135.43, which is $0.054/GB. That's $54.17 per TB. If you want a single backup, that's $108.34 per TB. Two backups (3…

The math looks good to me. I think they are saying that it's costing them $128.41 per year just to continue to run it -- i.e. considering the hardware itself a sunk cost.

Re: Storing 25 petabytes of Megaupload data costs us $9,000 a day

#76

Post by samstave »

ma2rten wrote: post #61
samstave wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming 2TB internal HDD's at $120.00 per piece, you would need $1.5MM worth of drives to transfer this to. Not including the man-hours associated with doing so. The $3.2MM per year is actually sounding a lot more reasonable to keep it up and running.

Wow, I bother to calculate it. However, - if you buy HDDs in these quantities you will get a big discount (50%+) - they most likely get the HDDs back after the case is finished, but not the electricity bill. - you have to factor in opportunity costs from not being able to rent out that rackspace. - I don't even understand how this can be proper evidence if it just hangs around at a private company.

Agreed, I was doing budgetary napkin math here... there are a lot of factors, though it does seem that the 9000/day while MAYBE 20% higher than reality is fairly realistic.

Re: Storing 25 petabytes of Megaupload data costs us $9,000 a day

#77

Post by samstave »

VikingCoder wrote: post #70

Help me out with the math here: 1 terabyte costs them $128.41 per year, right? Amazon S3 would cost them roughly $444 per year, if they were using the Reduced Redundancy Storage. The cheapest HD that I see on pcpartpicker (in terms of Price/GB) is the Western Digital Caviar Green 2.5 TB (5400 RPM) for $135.43, which is $0.054/GB. That's $54.17 per TB. If you want a single backup, that's $108.34 per TB. Two backups (3…

Yeah, I think you are exactly right. This, at 9K/day for that much data appears really good. That is ~$.028 cents PER TB PER DAY to store it.

Christ, I am paying Dropbox charges me, at $10/MONTH for 50GB the equivalent of $6.67 PER DAY in storage costs.

For my 50GB, I am charged $.33 per day.

Re: Storing 25 petabytes of Megaupload data costs us $9,000 a day

#78

Post by njharman »

VikingCoder wrote: post #70

Help me out with the math here: 1 terabyte costs them $128.41 per year, right? Amazon S3 would cost them roughly $444 per year, if they were using the Reduced Redundancy Storage. The cheapest HD that I see on pcpartpicker (in terms of Price/GB) is the Western Digital Caviar Green 2.5 TB (5400 RPM) for $135.43, which is $0.054/GB. That's $54.17 per TB. If you want a single backup, that's $108.34 per TB. Two backups (3…

The hardware cost 1.25 million. It cost $9000/day in electricity/connectivity/rackspace.

Re: Storing 25 petabytes of Megaupload data costs us $9,000 a day

#80

Post by gvb »

samstave wrote: post #49
DanBC wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

25 petabytes of hard disc is a considerable cost. Some people have mentioned insurance. Would any policy cover you for a customer being investigated for possibly criminal activity?

Assuming 2TB internal HDD's at $120.00 per piece, you would need $1.5MM worth of drives to transfer this to. Not including the man-hours associated with doing so. The $3.2MM per year is actually sounding a lot more reasonable to keep it up and running.

I would pull out the existing drives, put them in boxes for the FBI, and power down the servers. As customers sign up for machines and storage, buy replacement drives and power up the servers with the new drives.

It sounds to me like they are looking for a way to keep their income flowing with servers that they will have a hard time renting out in the near future. In other words, they just got hit with a huge excess of server capacity that they are going to have a hard time renting out short term (and probably longer term as well).

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