Earlier quoted context omitted.
What makes your drives so good?
Our guess is that they kiss every one of them before they leave the factory. For good luck...
Please do not publicize our trade secrets.
Hard Drive Reliability Update – Sep 2014
141–150 of 168 posts
Re: Hard Drive Reliability Update – Sep 2014
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're pretty much morally obligated to use Tarsnap when running FreeBSD.
You don't get the same space/price ratio, though...
Try attic-backup[1] to one of these[2] super-cheap VPSes. 2.5c/GB/month for a 50GB block.
Re: Hard Drive Reliability Update – Sep 2014
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, the data will probably be completely irrecoverable from an encrypted drive. However, instead of hoping that you will be able to recover data from a broken drive, back it up. I strongly recommend Tarsnap[1] for that. All your data is encrypted before it leaves your machine, it is run by our very own 'cperciva, and the key used for encryption (which you need to store securely somewhere, like your parents' house or…
I think that looks good but I have to tell you that the idea of committing data to what appears to be one person who could get "hit by a bus" worries me. I'd like to see on sites like that some kind of continuity plan. Unless you are suggestion that this is just another "redundant array of backups that you have to assume can fail". But even in that case it would be a good idea if cperciva had something posted on the…
Re: Hard Drive Reliability Update – Sep 2014
#144I really want to applaud backblaze for publishing these reports and stats. Too many companies closely guard this information that really helps the larger community. Based on the previous blogs from backblaze, when I built out our new hadoop cluster, I purchased 1450 Hitachi drives. I plan to gather our failure rates and publish them as backblaze does. Thanks for blazing the path!
> I purchased 1450 Hitachi drives.
Isn't using very similar drives a problem because their failure rates are not statistically independent, so there is an high probability that they will all fail at the same time?
Re: Hard Drive Reliability Update – Sep 2014
#145Re: Hard Drive Reliability Update – Sep 2014
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't get the same space/price ratio, though...
Try attic-backup[1] to one of these[2] super-cheap VPSes. 2.5c/GB/month for a 50GB block. 1. https://attic-backup.org/ 2. https://crissic.net/openvz_vps
That's only cheap because it's a small block. If you need larger ones, you can get much cheaper. I pay 0.64c/GB/month on my 2TB storage with TransIP: https://www.transip.eu/vps/big-storage/
Re: Hard Drive Reliability Update – Sep 2014
#147I really want to applaud backblaze for publishing these reports and stats. Too many companies closely guard this information that really helps the larger community. Based on the previous blogs from backblaze, when I built out our new hadoop cluster, I purchased 1450 Hitachi drives. I plan to gather our failure rates and publish them as backblaze does. Thanks for blazing the path!
> I purchased 1450 Hitachi drives. Isn't using very similar drives a problem because their failure rates are not statistically independent, so there is an high probability that they will all fail at the same time?
In practice the only time I've ever heard of something like that bite are serious firmware bugs (i.e. a counter overflow causing drives to cycle after 45 days of uptime - source: I work for a major CDN with a six figure drive count).
There are some statistical properties I recall that will make mechanical failures spread somewhat nicely, maybe someone can elaborate if they have a background in stats.
Re: Hard Drive Reliability Update – Sep 2014
#148Anyone have any reliability information on hitachi's new NAS drive series? They're supposed to build on the 7k3000 etc, but specifically tailored for NAS / raid situations, like WD reds. One major difference is that they're 7200 rpm instead of 5400 which is most non-high-end NAS drives.
http://www.hgst.com/hard-drives/internal-drive-kits/nas-desk...
Specs and data sheets
Re: Hard Drive Reliability Update – Sep 2014
#149I really want to applaud backblaze for publishing these reports and stats. Too many companies closely guard this information that really helps the larger community. Based on the previous blogs from backblaze, when I built out our new hadoop cluster, I purchased 1450 Hitachi drives. I plan to gather our failure rates and publish them as backblaze does. Thanks for blazing the path!
> I purchased 1450 Hitachi drives. Isn't using very similar drives a problem because their failure rates are not statistically independent, so there is an high probability that they will all fail at the same time?
I've seen it. RAID5 with 5 similar disks failed during weekend. All but one drive were dead. Of course disk failure also prevented daily backup run and all hell broke loose on Monday morning. The exact reason of death is unknown. Important fact is that the raid was configured on Thursday. So I guess the same time death is most probable when drives are really new and from same batch.
Re: Hard Drive Reliability Update – Sep 2014
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't believe reliability has ever necessarily been an "enterprise" feature. The concrete features I understand "enterprise" drives as having are: 1) firmware is built with RAID in mind. This might sound weird, but consumer drives are more likely to have problems with RAID, just because they aren't designed for it. See, for example, the first WD Green drives crashing RAID clusters because some timeout was too high.…
At every sales-pitch I've ever attended, the enterprise vendors mention “reliability” about every other word – the message that your boss will fire you for taking risks unless you buy their hardware is communicated with the subtlety of a solar eclipse. As for the RAID point, you'd very much want to find real data for that. I've heard similar folklore but have also heard plenty of lost data stories from enterprise dis…
heard plenty of lost data stories from enterprise disks in enterprise RAID
If you've ever worked with enterprise RAID, that should not surprise you! RAID is powerful, but also so easy to botch...