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Seagate just reinvented the disk interface using Ethernet

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Re: Seagate just reinvented the disk interface using Ethernet

#81

Post by rektide »

mrb wrote: post #28

I wish SD cards would implement a key-value storage interface natively. It would instantly remove the need to implement a filesystem in many embedded systems eg. music players: all they need is access to keys (song filenames) and values (blob of ogg/mp3 data).

SD cards implement a linear map of blocks. We typically introduce a hierarchical key-value store on top of that- a filing system where we file values by certain keys.

What is your ask? Get rid of hierarchy and use only a single flat directory on the SD card? Plan9 was close to the kind of vision you describe- configuration and state for applications lived live in the file system.

Re: Seagate just reinvented the disk interface using Ethernet

#82

Post by morphle »

smithian wrote: post #66
noselasd wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wondering if 10G really will become economical any time soon (for consumer products). It's been around a long time now, much longer than 1Gb was around until it started becoming consumer products. 10Gb still uses quite a lot of power, and consumer demand is virtually absent since the 10x speed we got from 100Mb to 1Gb has been "fast enough" for home users, and will be for many years.

Well, technically you can now get into 10Gb for around $150 per port. http://www.amazon.com/Netgear-12-Port-ProSafe-Gigabit-Switch...

you must factor in the sfp+ module, around $200. So a complete port would be $350, $700 for a point to point link. Thunderbolt is cheaper

Re: Seagate just reinvented the disk interface using Ethernet

#83

Post by pessimizer »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #3

OK, so head 'sploding a little... this is basically a hardware implementation of a Redis/MongoDb key/value store yes? If so, wow... yes... the world needs more of this, I think. Wonder if you could get it to conform to AWS S3 interface too?

It looks like it's literally a hardware implementation of Riak.

Re: Seagate just reinvented the disk interface using Ethernet

#85

Post by zwieback »

mrb wrote: post #28

I wish SD cards would implement a key-value storage interface natively. It would instantly remove the need to implement a filesystem in many embedded systems eg. music players: all they need is access to keys (song filenames) and values (blob of ogg/mp3 data).

That would be nice and it's doable. I like eMMC for microcontroller apps since it implements wear leveling and bad block management internally. Adding a simple key-value mapping could probably be added without too much effort.

eMMC isn't meant to be removable, though.

Re: Seagate just reinvented the disk interface using Ethernet

#86

Post by cpr »

bluedino wrote: post #62

It'd be very interesting if BackBlaze open-sourced at least part of their code. It may be optimized for archival purposes but they're sticking your data on multiple 180TB pods using an open-source stack. JFS file system, and the only access we then allow to this totally self-contained storage building block is through HTTPS running custom Backblaze application layer logic in Apache Tomcat 5.5. After taking all this i…

Why do they need the overhead of HTTPS for internal use like this?

Re: Seagate just reinvented the disk interface using Ethernet

#87

Post by wmf »

_wmd wrote: post #79

Seems like an odd invention given the industry is moving to storage technologies with sub-microsecond latencies, which is at least an order of magnitude better than 10ge is usually capable of. Still at least 'object store' style operations are much richer, so the need is avoided to make many round trips to the disk to resolve the location of a database record. Hmm, which raises the question: how much RAM should a har…

Kinetic looks like it's for cold storage. There's already a problem where the server to host cold disks (e.g. a Backblaze pod) costs more than the disks themselves. Having the disks speak Ethernet may reduce cost.

Re: Seagate just reinvented the disk interface using Ethernet

#88

Post by wmf »

polskibus wrote: post #5

I wonder about performance - will this new storage protocol be at least as performant as current standards (ATA, SCSI) ? We need better performing drives, didn't the datacenter sort of already took care of itself?

I don't think we need better performing hard disks. Everyone who cares about performance should have moved to flash already. Kinetic looks like it was designed by "disk people", not "flash people".

Re: Seagate just reinvented the disk interface using Ethernet

#89

Post by WalterBright »

I'm waiting for stereo components that connect to each other via an Ethernet cable and a hub.

Imagine a CD player, turntable, receiver, preamp, etc., that all have only two connectors: power, and Ethernet. You wouldn't have problems anymore with running out of connections on the back of your receiver. That incredible rats nest of disparate wires and cables would be gone. No more RCA cables, coax cables, HDMI, optical cables, composite video, supervideo, component video, BNC, various adapters, etc.

No more fumbling around the back trying to figure out which socket to plug the RCA cables into, which is input, which is output, etc.

Re: Seagate just reinvented the disk interface using Ethernet

#90

Post by agumonkey »

mbq wrote: post #63
agumonkey wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hard drives are already run by arm controllers http://hackaday.com/2013/08/02/sprite_tm-ohm2013-talk-hackin... so your idea might happen sooner than expected

Also SSDs implement an internal filesystem optimized for flash that emulates a block device to the outside. For this Kinetic Store, the controller would be quite likely even simpler.

There would still be a need for ssd specific wear leveling and trim logic in the controller though
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