[AccessD] Google's Disk Failure Experience

jwcolby jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Thu Jul 22 12:55:41 CDT 2010


Well... I already have three TB drives, two full, one half full.

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com


Michael Bahr wrote:
> Yeah but we are not running a server farm.  :-P
> 
> Mike...
> 
>> Or... for 400$ plus parts I already have:
>>
>> MB (6 sata ports) Have it
>> Processor	Have it
>> Memory		Have it
>> PS		Have it
>> (3) 1T drives	Have it (movies installed)
>> (7) 640G drives	Have it
>>
>> Plus:
>>
>> (1) 4 port PCI Express card $90
>> (1) 16 drive unraid license $119
>> (1) 1TB parity drive $100
>>
>> Case		$90
>> 	http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811219020&cm_re=4u_rackmount_case-_-11-219-020-_-Product
>>
>> Total: $400 for for ~7 terabytes usable.
>>
>> ;)
>>
>> John W. Colby
>> www.ColbyConsulting.com
>>
>>
>> Drew Wutka wrote:
>>> A few months ago, saw a network capable RAID 1 hard drive setup for
>>> ~$200, without the drives.  Just a box with a network port.  Terrabyte
>>> drives are getting pretty cheap, so you could get a networked mirrored
>>> 1+ terabyte setup for about 400.
>>>
>>> Drew
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
>>> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Michael Bahr
>>> Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 12:42 PM
>>> To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
>>> Subject: Re: [AccessD] Google's Disk Failure Experience
>>>
>>> Well, I can see your point that only ripping DVD's takes 2 minutes each
>>> and you do not need them anymore.  But for me I record OTA/cable HD
>>> shows
>>> and uncut movies and cut out the commercials and archive them.  Now I
>>> have
>>> whole seasons worth of shows and movies.  I save money buy not buying
>>> the
>>> Blu-Ray disks ($30-$60 for each season or movie).  So yes it is
>>> important
>>> to me to have a backup as these are not reproducible.  A seperate media
>>> server setup as raid 1 does fit my needs.
>>>
>>> Mike...
>>>
>>>>  >How much is your time worth?
>>>>
>>>> This is a classic case of insufficient analysis...
>>>>
>>>> The cost is not the cost of the drive.  It is the cost of the drive
>>> (twice
>>>> the drives), plus the
>>>> cost of the SATA ports (twice) plus the cost of the power supply
>>> (twice
>>>> the disk current - 12v),
>>>> plus the cost of electricity to run the disks (twice the electricity)
>>> plus
>>>> the cost of a case big
>>>> enough to handle enough drives (twice as large disk cage) plus...
>>>>
>>>> Of course all my "twices" are on a "per disk used" basis, not a total
>>>> system cost and I understand
>>>> the difference.
>>>>
>>>> Furthermore, my time isn't the cost of my time to rip 200 dvds, it is
>>> the
>>>> cost of my time to rip 200
>>>> dvds divided by the probability of losing 2 disks at the same time.
>>>>
>>>> I ripped my drives as I wanted to watch them, so it was an incremental
>>>> cost accumulated over time.
>>>> The actual time is about 2 minutes per dvd.  200 dvds per drive is an
>>>> actual cost of 200 minutes to
>>>> fill a drive.  Would I actually rerip all of the disks?  No because
>>> many
>>>> of them are for my kids who
>>>> are now older and don't even watch those disks any more, not to
>>> mention
>>>> the disks I ripped that I
>>>> just don't care about.
>>>>
>>>> HOWEVER... In the two years that I have been using the system, I have
>>>> never lost one of these
>>>> drives.  Thus my time to "do it over again" is zero (so far).  I have
>>> been
>>>> working with raid
>>>> extensively for about 5 years, and in those 5 years I have lost single
>>>> drives but I have never lost
>>>> two drives at the same time.
>>>>
>>>> I am sure that there are numbers out there that discuss the
>>> probability of
>>>> two drive failures.  In
>>>> fact IIRC from that paper by google, the probability of failure of any
>>>> given single drive over 5
>>>> years was about 14%?  The probability of two failures (my simple math)
>>>> would be .14 * .14 = .0196 or
>>>> ~ 2%.  That is for two failures, NOT two SIMULTANEOUS failures.
>>>>
>>>> All of this matters if the cost is catastrophic.  Facing a 2% chance
>>> that
>>>> I will have to re-rip 200
>>>> dvds in any given 5 year period, I am unwilling to commit the extra
>>> money
>>>> to preventing this
>>>> possibility.
>>>>
>>>> This whole discussion does point out that an analysis of the actual
>>>> numbers might cause one to come
>>>> to a different conclusion.  And who knows, you might decide "screw the
>>>> costs", it is worth it to me.
>>>>
>>>> It is not worth it to me.
>>>>
>>>> Look at Unraid.
>>>>
>>>> http://lime-technology.com/
>>>>
>>>> I am not trying to sell anyone on unRaid, I am simply saying consider
>>> it
>>>> for a specific class of
>>>> redundancy needs.  For this level of redundancy need, unRaid seems
>>> like a
>>>> good compromise.
>>>>
>>>> John W. Colby
>>>> www.ColbyConsulting.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Michael Bahr wrote:
>>>>> John, for your media collections you really should go only Raid 1.
>>> Yeah
>>>>> if you lose the HD you can re-do everything but who has the time?
>>>>> Besides
>>>>> 2TB HD's are ~<$150 or so.  How much is your time worth?
>>>>>
>>>>> Mike...
>>>>>
>>>>>> I am about to build an UnRaid for my massive video / music
>>> collection.
>>>>>> I
>>>>>> currently have no
>>>>>> protection on that so if I lose a disk I lose all of that on one
>>> disk.
>>>>>> With Unraid I
>>>>>> would have "raid 5 like"
>>>>>> storage so that in the event of single drive failure I can still
>>>>>> recover.
>>>>>> If I do lose it I just
>>>>>> re-rip.  Not the end of the world but not something I want to do.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> John W. Colby
>>>>>> www.ColbyConsulting.com
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>>>> Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com
>>>>
>>>
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>>
> 
> 



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