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A Look at Backblaze’s Toshiba Hard Drives

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Re: A Look at Backblaze’s Toshiba Hard Drives

#41

Post by wcchandler »

monochromatic wrote: post #22
atYevP wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yev from Backblaze here -> The drive manufacturer won't do it for us (at least not at our scale). We're currently chatting to some channel retailers that would be able to do it for us and allow us to scale a little bit. It was discouraging us from buying in larger quantities, but if the price of the drive + labeling works out, we'll try some larger orders.

Sounds like a job for a temp.

I was thinking an intern, but yeah... sounds like a great way for somebody low-level to get their foot in the door.

Re: A Look at Backblaze’s Toshiba Hard Drives

#42

Post by rbanffy »

atYevP wrote: post #31
jshb wrote: post #25

Didn't you brag about taking out HDD out of external drives to use in your DC? But now you are saying you can't even put a label on a drive?

Yev from Backblaze here -> sure we can, but the datacenter guys are very analytical, they take time in to consideration as theirs is at a premium, so they could do it in the datacenter, but we'd much rather have them prelabeled.

This could be automated. A very simple computer with a SATA port and a USB label printer should be able to neatly print a tag with relevant drive data for every drive it sees through the SATA port.

At least the human error part would be mitigated. With some clever connector design, I guess a drive could be labeled in 5 seconds or less. If you do it for all drives before mounting, you'd get a single standard label for every unit.

Re: A Look at Backblaze’s Toshiba Hard Drives

#43

Post by sunstone »

atYevP wrote: post #7
bluedino wrote: post #2

>> HGST, Seagate and Western Digital drives all have the serial number of the drive on the top end of the drive. Toshiba drives do not. Is simply printing and adding a label to each hard drive not enough, is it too error-prone, or what?

Yev from Backblaze here -> The drive manufacturer won't do it for us (at least not at our scale). We're currently chatting to some channel retailers that would be able to do it for us and allow us to scale a little bit. It was discouraging us from buying in larger quantities, but if the price of the drive + labeling works out, we'll try some larger orders.

Hi Yev, just want to say that I love these posts that Backblaze does regarding drive reliability. Thanks.

Re: A Look at Backblaze’s Toshiba Hard Drives

#44

Post by atYevP »

sunstone wrote: post #43
atYevP wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yev from Backblaze here -> The drive manufacturer won't do it for us (at least not at our scale). We're currently chatting to some channel retailers that would be able to do it for us and allow us to scale a little bit. It was discouraging us from buying in larger quantities, but if the price of the drive + labeling works out, we'll try some larger orders.

Hi Yev, just want to say that I love these posts that Backblaze does regarding drive reliability. Thanks.

Cool! Well, that's why we write them, people seem to dig them! And we have a lot of stats and data from our experiences to share, so it's mutually beneficial!

Re: A Look at Backblaze’s Toshiba Hard Drives

#45

Post by clunkclunk »

abrowne wrote: post #23
clunkclunk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Mac OS X Terminal: say -v Trinoids "Failure: Disk 0491/sdag doesn’t contain a valid partition table. Pod0491: Replace sdag (Z252A34AS) with a new 3TB Toshiba DT01ACA300. Reboot Pod0491 and re-add new sdag to sync. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own"

I think I prefer Zarvox ($ say -v Zarvox ...).

It's also a good choice. Probably sounds more like an individual Borg, whereas Trinoids has that "multi-voice" thing that the Borg use.

Re: A Look at Backblaze’s Toshiba Hard Drives

#46

Post by atYevP »

rbanffy wrote: post #42
atYevP wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yev from Backblaze here -> sure we can, but the datacenter guys are very analytical, they take time in to consideration as theirs is at a premium, so they could do it in the datacenter, but we'd much rather have them prelabeled.

This could be automated. A very simple computer with a SATA port and a USB label printer should be able to neatly print a tag with relevant drive data for every drive it sees through the SATA port. At least the human error part would be mitigated. With some clever connector design, I guess a drive could be labeled in 5 seconds or less. If you do it for all drives before mounting, you'd get a single standard label for…

Definitely something to consider if we scale this up. Right now if we were to propose that to our ops team their heads might explode. Gotta make sure they are open to new workflows first :*D

Re: A Look at Backblaze’s Toshiba Hard Drives

#47

Post by univacky »

js2 wrote: post #15

The first hard drive I used was a 40 MB Seagate, $900 in 1989. It was the size of a hefty phone book. The first NetApp Filer I used had 4 GB drives, total capacity a few hundred GB, don't recall cost (not cheap), in 1997. It was the size of a small closet. The first EMC I used had drives of size I don't recall, total capacity in the TB, for unimaginable prices, in 2000. It was the size of small room. We're up to 8 TB…

I used Fastrand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC_FASTRAND

Re: A Look at Backblaze’s Toshiba Hard Drives

#48

Post by rbanffy »

atYevP wrote: post #46
rbanffy wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This could be automated. A very simple computer with a SATA port and a USB label printer should be able to neatly print a tag with relevant drive data for every drive it sees through the SATA port. At least the human error part would be mitigated. With some clever connector design, I guess a drive could be labeled in 5 seconds or less. If you do it for all drives before mounting, you'd get a single standard label for…

Definitely something to consider if we scale this up. Right now if we were to propose that to our ops team their heads might explode. Gotta make sure they are open to new workflows first :*D

> Right now if we were to propose that to our ops team their heads might explode.

Please don't. I wouldn't like to be responsible for such a disaster. Those are nice folks.

Re: A Look at Backblaze’s Toshiba Hard Drives

#49

Post by atYevP »

rbanffy wrote: post #48
atYevP wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely something to consider if we scale this up. Right now if we were to propose that to our ops team their heads might explode. Gotta make sure they are open to new workflows first :*D

> Right now if we were to propose that to our ops team their heads might explode. Please don't. I wouldn't like to be responsible for such a disaster. Those are nice folks.

They ARE nice folks. I shall tell them you said so. They like the positive reinforcement :)

Re: A Look at Backblaze’s Toshiba Hard Drives

#50

Post by kijin »

Already__Taken wrote: post #40
kijin wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you need high performance, energy efficiency, or a lot of space? Performance-wise, I have nothing but good things to say about the WD Black series and recent 7200rpm drives from HGST (formerly Hitachi, now owned by WD). Of course neither is any match to a decent SSD, but the 1TB models are 1/10 the price of a similarly sized SSD :) For energy efficiency, on the other hand, any 5400rpm drive from WD or HGST will do…

A 1tb HGST 7k drive is £50 A 1tb Samsung 850 EVO is £300 I thought it'd be interesting how your "1/10th the price" sounded ok but was actually more like 16% - 20% the cost. I'm constantly impressed by how the SSD prices keep falling.

Yeah, the prices seem to have gone down again since the last time I checked :)
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