5 ms·

So a hard drive weighs about 1.5 pounds, so 60 of them in a pod is about 100 pounds before you even include the pod itself. That doesn't sound particularly plea

by boulos 11y ago

So a hard drive weighs about 1.5 pounds, so 60 of them in a pod is about 100 pounds before you even include the pod itself. That doesn't sound particularly pleasant for the technician to install the first time... You put 10 of those in a rack and now we're up to 1000 pounds. At what point does this become challenging for the floor?

atYevP 11y ago
Yev from Backblaze here -> Good question! We actually took that in to consideration when designing them. In our datacenter the floors can handle it, but it's definitely something that should be considered if you're thinking about building these out. Check with your datacenter about what their "floor spec" is :)
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  Dropping in to say that from keeping the business financially in good shape to innovation level to opening up the hardware.... normally I'm the critic but all I can say is GREAT WORK. Good example to set and good tech. Keep it up. :)
  - atYevP 11y ago
    Thanks! We really do this so that others follow suite. It's sort of happened with Facebook's Open Compute, and Netflix's Open Connect releasing some of their data. Dropbox recently brought things in-house as well, so we're hoping they start talking about their goodies too! It makes things more interesting, and inexpensive storage opens up the possibilities for a lot of cool stuff. My favorite example is science labs. We've heard from a lot of them that they used to run experiments, collect the relevant data, and toss the rest. It was less expensive to run the experiment again than storing all of the data. That's changing now with storage being less expensive, and they're able to keep the entire experiment data set intact, and they love that because it means in the future they can take a look at all of the information surrounding their findings, and if the technology or science changes, they'll have the entire data set to play with instead of just a subset. Very cool stuff!
brianwski 11y ago
Brian from Backblaze here. Our corporate office in San Mateo is in an old wood building and we're on the second floor. We put a heavy rack full of experimental pods in a closet here, and I was worried it might sink through the floor BETWEEN the floor joists. :-) So I put a few layers of extra strong plywood under the rack to distribute the load. I'm happy to report no damage or sagging has happened (yet).
- jonatron 11y ago
  From my experience in installing a 24 drive storage server, it was too heavy for two people with all the hard drives installed. Do you use some sort of crane to lift the pods?
  - brianwski 11y ago
    Yes, our datacenter techs use a "server lift" called "Guido". You can see pictures of Guido here: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/sean-has-a-new-friend-his-name-is-guido/ https://www.backblaze.com/blog/sean-has-a-new-friend-his-nam...
- rbritton 11y ago
  Thick plywood can handle a lot. My dad is a general contractor and uses sheets of 1 1/2" plywood to prevent his forklift (~24,000 lbs) from sinking into soft ground. At that weight a single sheet (per tire) crunches a little, but it holds up just fine.
dsr_ 11y ago
Your datacenter should be supplying that spec to you as part of their introductory materials, along with their available power and cooling densities. If you build your own datacenter, you are of course responsible for the floor loading...
protomyth 11y ago
> That doesn't sound particularly pleasant for the technician to install the first time... I've pretty much reconciled I'm going have to buy something from http://serverlift.com http://serverlift.com at some point if I keep doing this job and stuff keeps getting heavier.
- atYevP 11y ago
  Yup! We call ours Guido -> https://www.backblaze.com/blog/sean-has-a-new-friend-his-name-is-guido/ https://www.backblaze.com/blog/sean-has-a-new-friend-his-nam...
- mark-r 11y ago
  Just fill the pod with those helium drives, it will float right into place!
  - atYevP 11y ago
    Tried a few once...had to tether them to the ground :P

by boulos 11y ago

atYevP 11y ago

Yev from Backblaze here -> Good question! We actually took that in to consideration when designing them. In our datacenter the floors can handle it, but it's definitely something that should be considered if you're thinking about building these out. Check with your datacenter about what their "floor spec" is :)

nickpsecurity 11y ago
Dropping in to say that from keeping the business financially in good shape to innovation level to opening up the hardware.... normally I'm the critic but all I can say is GREAT WORK. Good example to set and good tech. Keep it up. :)
- atYevP 11y ago
  Thanks! We really do this so that others follow suite. It's sort of happened with Facebook's Open Compute, and Netflix's Open Connect releasing some of their data. Dropbox recently brought things in-house as well, so we're hoping they start talking about their goodies too! It makes things more interesting, and inexpensive storage opens up the possibilities for a lot of cool stuff. My favorite example is science labs. We've heard from a lot of them that they used to run experiments, collect the relevant data, and toss the rest. It was less expensive to run the experiment again than storing all of the data. That's changing now with storage being less expensive, and they're able to keep the entire experiment data set intact, and they love that because it means in the future they can take a look at all of the information surrounding their findings, and if the technology or science changes, they'll have the entire data set to play with instead of just a subset. Very cool stuff!

brianwski 11y ago

Brian from Backblaze here. Our corporate office in San Mateo is in an old wood building and we're on the second floor. We put a heavy rack full of experimental pods in a closet here, and I was worried it might sink through the floor BETWEEN the floor joists. :-) So I put a few layers of extra strong plywood under the rack to distribute the load. I'm happy to report no damage or sagging has happened (yet).

jonatron 11y ago
From my experience in installing a 24 drive storage server, it was too heavy for two people with all the hard drives installed. Do you use some sort of crane to lift the pods?
- brianwski 11y ago
  Yes, our datacenter techs use a "server lift" called "Guido". You can see pictures of Guido here: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/sean-has-a-new-friend-his-name-is-guido/ https://www.backblaze.com/blog/sean-has-a-new-friend-his-nam...
rbritton 11y ago
Thick plywood can handle a lot. My dad is a general contractor and uses sheets of 1 1/2" plywood to prevent his forklift (~24,000 lbs) from sinking into soft ground. At that weight a single sheet (per tire) crunches a little, but it holds up just fine.

dsr_ 11y ago

Your datacenter should be supplying that spec to you as part of their introductory materials, along with their available power and cooling densities. If you build your own datacenter, you are of course responsible for the floor loading...

protomyth 11y ago

> That doesn't sound particularly pleasant for the technician to install the first time... I've pretty much reconciled I'm going have to buy something from http://serverlift.com http://serverlift.com at some point if I keep doing this job and stuff keeps getting heavier.

atYevP 11y ago
Yup! We call ours Guido -> https://www.backblaze.com/blog/sean-has-a-new-friend-his-name-is-guido/ https://www.backblaze.com/blog/sean-has-a-new-friend-his-nam...
mark-r 11y ago
Just fill the pod with those helium drives, it will float right into place!
- atYevP 11y ago
  Tried a few once...had to tether them to the ground :P