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Getting Physical - Seagate Kinetic Drive Hardware

swiftstack.com

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Re: Getting Physical - Seagate Kinetic Drive Hardware

#2
RAID over IP via broadcast? From a security standpoint, it would seem there are many hurdles to jump. Not too long ago, I talked to Dickinson about what you guys do. I never considered the amount of harddrives necessary to facilitate Swiftstack's goals. Of course the software challenges are interesting, but the amount of hardware and maintaining risk/DR/costs/etc. Oh man. Hats off to you guys.

Re: Getting Physical - Seagate Kinetic Drive Hardware

#3
post #2

RAID over IP via broadcast? From a security standpoint, it would seem there are many hurdles to jump. Not too long ago, I talked to Dickinson about what you guys do. I never considered the amount of harddrives necessary to facilitate Swiftstack's goals. Of course the software challenges are interesting, but the amount of hardware and maintaining risk/DR/costs/etc. Oh man. Hats off to you guys.

It's not RAID over IP. Each drive itself is a network endpoint.

On the practical side, this means that the drive is "connected" to one or more servers (and can be re-homed on the fly). The storage system itself is responsible for coordinating the communication across the cluster of Kinetic drives. In our case, the coordinating storage system is OpenStack Swift.

On the humorous side, this means that technobabble like "Can you ping the boot record?" or "What does a traceroute to the directory show?" actually sorta make sense now.

Re: Getting Physical - Seagate Kinetic Drive Hardware

#4
post #2

RAID over IP via broadcast? From a security standpoint, it would seem there are many hurdles to jump. Not too long ago, I talked to Dickinson about what you guys do. I never considered the amount of harddrives necessary to facilitate Swiftstack's goals. Of course the software challenges are interesting, but the amount of hardware and maintaining risk/DR/costs/etc. Oh man. Hats off to you guys.

It's not RAID over IP. Each drive itself is a network endpoint. On the practical side, this means that the drive is "connected" to one or more servers (and can be re-homed on the fly). The storage system itself is responsible for coordinating the communication across the cluster of Kinetic drives. In our case, the coordinating storage system is OpenStack Swift. On the humorous side, this means that technobabble like…

RAID over IP was a joke. I remember reading this story about someone flooding routers to turn them into a broadcasts to view the flow of packets over the network. I imagined the same thing, then said, hey with HDDs and broadcast, you could simulate RAID. I made a long stretch on that one.

Re: Getting Physical - Seagate Kinetic Drive Hardware

#6
post #5

Same connector as SAS, but a different pinout? Does this not scream "bad idea" to anyone else?

This is a good thing for a couple of reasons. First it allows equipment manufacturers to build chassis with the same drive trays that are already in production. Second, it that from a drive assembly standpoint, the same build and testing equipment can be used. This should speed development and manufacturing quality.

Is the concern more from an ergonomic perspective, that someone in a data center may plug in a drive into the wrong system?

Re: Getting Physical - Seagate Kinetic Drive Hardware

#8
post #2

RAID over IP via broadcast? From a security standpoint, it would seem there are many hurdles to jump. Not too long ago, I talked to Dickinson about what you guys do. I never considered the amount of harddrives necessary to facilitate Swiftstack's goals. Of course the software challenges are interesting, but the amount of hardware and maintaining risk/DR/costs/etc. Oh man. Hats off to you guys.

It's not RAID over IP. Each drive itself is a network endpoint. On the practical side, this means that the drive is "connected" to one or more servers (and can be re-homed on the fly). The storage system itself is responsible for coordinating the communication across the cluster of Kinetic drives. In our case, the coordinating storage system is OpenStack Swift. On the humorous side, this means that technobabble like…

lol @ technobabble

Re: Getting Physical - Seagate Kinetic Drive Hardware

#10
post #9
post #5

Same connector as SAS, but a different pinout? Does this not scream "bad idea" to anyone else?

Maybe they can/will be making the jack on the drive a unique standard color?

Good question. That sounds like a reasonable idea for quickly identify when looking for a replacement in the spares closet.
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