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Cloud Storage for $2 per TB per month

blog.sia.tech

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Re: Cloud Storage for $2 per TB per month

#81

Post by caymanjim »

breakyerself wrote: post #51
wmf wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not talking about a real datacenter; they're talking about a deathtrap crypto mine with hard disks instead of GPUs/ASICs. Can't you run a million hard disks off a consumer cable modem? ;-) At the (slow) rate Sia is growing, I don't think there will ever be enough demand to justify this design anyway.

How much is a terabyte of dropbox storage?

Dropbox is $10/TB/mo, which is the "old" industry standard (and still what most big guys charge). Backblaze is $5, but they charge egress fees, so usage matters. Dropbox doesn't charge for egress, but there are limits on "Public" folder bandwidth (and you can't pay for more if you max out). I don't think there are limits on private content, but I bet there's a soft throttle or some limit that will get you contacted.

There aren't a lot of options for <$5/TB and they all charge egress. I've tried Backblaze, pCloud, and DO Spaces. My specific use case is storing full HD movies for streaming via Plex, which requires a fairly reliable 6Gbit/second, and most of them can't keep up. DO Spaces did the best of all the ones I tried, so I'm using that for now, but it's just skating the edge of usability.

Re: Cloud Storage for $2 per TB per month

#82

Post by Ajedi32 »

walrus01 wrote: post #18

I work in telecom/datacenter infrastructure and this is fanciful. The whole way they take the wattage load of one machine and then hand wave away all of the rest of the costs of either building and running a datacenter, or paying ongoing monthly colocation costs... Is just scary. I truly don't mean to offend anyone but this looks like a bunch of enthusiastic dilettantes. Generators? UPS? Cooling costs? Square footage…

They're not talking about a datacenter. Datacenters need to be reliable. Sia storage pools don't, because security and reliability is achieved at the global network level, not at the level of individual systems or storage pools. 95% reliability means you can be down for two whole weeks out of every year and still be well within acceptable uptime requirements.

Generators? Who needs those? Just wait for the power to come back on. UPS? Why bother? Square footage? Stick some wooden shelves in the cheapest building possible. Cooling? Locate in a cold climate and buy some window fans.

This isn't anything like the sort of infrastructure you're used to dealing with. Think Bitcoin mining farm, not Backblaze datacenter. Any corners that can be cut will be.

Re: Cloud Storage for $2 per TB per month

#83

Post by throwaway3157 »

chx wrote: post #58
kmod wrote: post #15

I worked on the design of Dropbox's exabyte-scale storage system, and from that experience I can say that these numbers are all extremely optimistic, even with their "you can do it cheaper if you only target 95% uptime" caveat. Networking is much more expensive, labor is much more expensive, space is much more expensive, depreciation is faster than they say, etc etc. I don't think the authors have ever done any actua…

> I didn't read all their math but I expect their final result to be off by a factor of 2-5x. Can't be more than 2.5 because Backblaze B2 already gives you $5/TB/Mo.

> Can't be more than 2.5 because Backblaze B2 already gives you $5/TB/Mo.

Well it can be, if they have a lot of inefficiencies. Backblaze could have more experienced engineers who overcame these. I assure you, I can accidentally design a very expensive storage system as I’m not that smart ;)

Re: Cloud Storage for $2 per TB per month

#84

Post by rsync »

standardUser wrote: post #4

On a related topic, I've had a ton of problems finding a cloud storage system that will reliably handle files around 100-200gb. Does anyone have a recommendation for a service that can handle that file size with ease?

"On a related topic, I've had a ton of problems finding a cloud storage system that will reliably handle files around 100-200gb. Does anyone have a recommendation for a service that can handle that file size with ease?"

rsync.net gives you an empty, ZFS filesystem that you can do anything you like with.[1]

I believe the file-size limit is 16 exbibytes (264 bytes).

rsync.net can also talk to every cloud storage provider[2] because rclone[3] is built into the platform:

    ssh user@rsync.net rclone s3:/some/bucket rsync/home/dir
[1] http://rsync.net

[2] https://www.rsync.net/products/universal.html

[3] https://rclone.org/

Re: Cloud Storage for $2 per TB per month

#85

Post by caymanjim »

breakyerself wrote: post #51
wmf wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not talking about a real datacenter; they're talking about a deathtrap crypto mine with hard disks instead of GPUs/ASICs. Can't you run a million hard disks off a consumer cable modem? ;-) At the (slow) rate Sia is growing, I don't think there will ever be enough demand to justify this design anyway.

How much is a terabyte of dropbox storage?

I should add that places like Backblaze and pCloud and DO Spaces and others charge per GB stored, so if you're using 1.3TB it's prorated accordingly.

Re: Cloud Storage for $2 per TB per month

#86

Post by jknoepfler »

arcticbull wrote: post #70
Taek wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. A lot of these numbers are drawn from experience in the mining world, where people realized that when cost is the ultimate bottom line, a lot of corners can be cut. Sia systems don't need a ton of networking. I ran the networking buildout costs by some networking people, and again it comes down to cutting corners. If you only need 10 gbps per rack, if you don't mind having extra milliseconds added, etc,…

Here's the issue. We know that due to economy of scale and domain experience, AWS will always have the lowest cost (to Amazon) for storage -- whether that's totally-reliable storage, or sorta-reliable. If there was a demand for sorta-reliable, they'd build a sorta-reliable S3 and undercut you. Then, blockchain adds inefficiency. Therefore, it's basically impossible for any blockchain solution to have a lower total co…

having worked at aws, all I'll say is I think you're wildly over-estimating their agility

Re: Cloud Storage for $2 per TB per month

#87

Post by reggieband »

I'm going through Sia's website now. It seems this article is meant to bolster the claim on their website which states "When the Sia network is fully optimized, pricing will fall somewhere around $2/TB/month." [1]

Call me skeptical but it seems that they aren't committing to building out this infrastructure themselves or providing a specific amount of storage at this pricing. They seem to be outlining a potential infrastructure that some enterprising individual (or corporation) could use to provide storage at that price to "renters" within their marketplace.

I guess I'll just wait until someone puts their money where their mouth is. Given that this is a marketplace, the fact that a theoretical setup could be built to provide some service doesn't necessarily guarantee it will be built.

1. https://support.sia.tech/article/thvymhf1ff-about-renting

Re: Cloud Storage for $2 per TB per month

#88

Post by TrueDuality »

chx wrote: post #58
kmod wrote: post #15

I worked on the design of Dropbox's exabyte-scale storage system, and from that experience I can say that these numbers are all extremely optimistic, even with their "you can do it cheaper if you only target 95% uptime" caveat. Networking is much more expensive, labor is much more expensive, space is much more expensive, depreciation is faster than they say, etc etc. I don't think the authors have ever done any actua…

> I didn't read all their math but I expect their final result to be off by a factor of 2-5x. Can't be more than 2.5 because Backblaze B2 already gives you $5/TB/Mo.

Backblaze is operating at their own economy of scale with dedicated deals with suppliers, custom bare bones hardware, optimized processes, etc. It's always more expensive starting out as a little company for raw hardware and processes until you're big enough and mature enough to get the deals and processes in place.

That is also not the only service that Backblaze offers and wasn't their first. It could be that B2 is simply a way for them to offset their cost for extra capacity and are running it effectively near-cost for them.

Re: Cloud Storage for $2 per TB per month

#89

Post by nemonemo »

throwaway9878 wrote: post #79
arcticbull wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the issue. We know that due to economy of scale and domain experience, AWS will always have the lowest cost (to Amazon) for storage -- whether that's totally-reliable storage, or sorta-reliable. If there was a demand for sorta-reliable, they'd build a sorta-reliable S3 and undercut you. Then, blockchain adds inefficiency. Therefore, it's basically impossible for any blockchain solution to have a lower total co…

Everybody with more money than you can always undercut you in anything you ever do so why bother ever trying to do anything

I think the point is that the cost should not be the main motivator. I would agree that there needs to be other differentiators in addition to cost, which could provide sufficient moat against other competitors, big or small.

Re: Cloud Storage for $2 per TB per month

#90

Post by benhurmarcel »

jakear wrote: post #14

> That means about 2 hours of labor per rig. We’ll call that $50 Does that seem low to anyone else? I don’t really have any background in the area, but 25/hr cost to the company would be less than 20/hr pay for the skilled labor. Other countries are different of course, but in US I could make that much flipping burgers in the right area.

In some developed countries you can get qualified labor that cheap. For example in Southern or Eastern Europe. Not to mention developing countries of course.
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