4 ms·

How do they afford all those disks?

by homero 8y ago

Gustomaximus 8y ago
I've donated token amounts on a few occasions. I feel if you have the means its the right thing to do when a project like this does something useful for you. I suspect the bulk comes from a few generous individuals / corporations as this is not the most known platform. Found this with a quick search: https://archive.org/about/credits.php https://archive.org/about/credits.php
mekarpeles 8y ago
- foundations + government grants https://archive.org/post/2776/who-funds-this https://archive.org/post/2776/who-funds-this - donations (in-cash / in-kind) https://archive.org/about/credits.php https://archive.org/about/credits.php - digitization services https://archive.org/scanning https://archive.org/scanning - web archiving services https://archive-it.org https://archive-it.org src: I work @ Internet Archive on https://openlibrary.org https://openlibrary.org
- PM_ME_YOUR_CAT 8y ago
  This is pretty great actually. I see that ads are none of your points: does Wayback Machine either avoid them totally or is it a negligible amount?
  - aaroninsf 8y ago
    No ads full stop!
Dylan16807 8y ago
A completely new set of hard drives for 44PB of raw storage would cost 1-1.5 million, and they're only growing by 9% (18%?) per year. It's not all that much, and it's not even close to their biggest budget entry.
- GordonS 8y ago
  Don't forget that they will need geo-redundancy built in to prevent data loss, and they likely have some kind of offline archive too. Then there is the running cost to power all those drives. Also, when you have that many drives, you're going to be constantly replacing dead ones. I have a feeling this is an expensive operation!
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    > Don't forget that they will need geo-redundancy built in to prevent data loss This is already factoring in 2x storage, so you just put each half in a different location. > and they likely have some kind of offline archive too. Okay so 2 million. > Then there is the running cost to power all those drives. Yes, that's one of many things that adds on top of the raw drive cost. > Also, when you have that many drives, you're going to be constantly replacing dead ones. It's not actually that bad! If you cram ten thousand drives into a few racks, your drive failures per week will be in the single digits. You could have someone come in once a month. > I have a feeling this is an expensive operation! It is, but my core point is that it would be expensive even if the drives were free. You need a certain amount of server horsepower and the physical resources to support it. This implies that you're not getting to stick 60 drives in a single chassis, so you need more labor as well. There was an estimate last year of $1500 for IA to store and serve a terabyte of data indefinitely. I'd love to see a breakdown of that number, how much goes to day 1 hardware, how much goes to year 1 hosting, how long that hardware is expected to last. But even the day 1 cost is definitely a lot more than $50 for 2TB worth of hard drive.
    - GordonS 8y ago
      > This is already factoring in 2x storage, so you just put each half in a different location. My bad, I missed that! > It is, but my core point is that it would be expensive even if the drives were free. On reflection, and after reading your reply, I agree :) > There was an estimate last year of $1500 for IA to store and serve a terabyte of data indefinitely. I assume that's $1500 per year?

How do they afford all those disks?

by homero 8y ago

How do they afford all those disks?

I've donated token amounts on a few occasions. I feel if you have the means its the right thing to do when a project like this does something useful for you. I suspect the bulk comes from a few generous individuals / corporations as this is not the most known platform. Found this with a quick search: https://archive.org/about/credits.php https://archive.org/about/credits.php

mekarpeles 8y ago

- foundations + government grants https://archive.org/post/2776/who-funds-this https://archive.org/post/2776/who-funds-this - donations (in-cash / in-kind) https://archive.org/about/credits.php https://archive.org/about/credits.php - digitization services https://archive.org/scanning https://archive.org/scanning - web archiving services https://archive-it.org https://archive-it.org src: I work @ Internet Archive on https://openlibrary.org https://openlibrary.org

PM_ME_YOUR_CAT 8y ago
This is pretty great actually. I see that ads are none of your points: does Wayback Machine either avoid them totally or is it a negligible amount?
- aaroninsf 8y ago
  No ads full stop!

Dylan16807 8y ago

A completely new set of hard drives for 44PB of raw storage would cost 1-1.5 million, and they're only growing by 9% (18%?) per year. It's not all that much, and it's not even close to their biggest budget entry.

GordonS 8y ago
Don't forget that they will need geo-redundancy built in to prevent data loss, and they likely have some kind of offline archive too. Then there is the running cost to power all those drives. Also, when you have that many drives, you're going to be constantly replacing dead ones. I have a feeling this is an expensive operation!
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  > Don't forget that they will need geo-redundancy built in to prevent data loss This is already factoring in 2x storage, so you just put each half in a different location. > and they likely have some kind of offline archive too. Okay so 2 million. > Then there is the running cost to power all those drives. Yes, that's one of many things that adds on top of the raw drive cost. > Also, when you have that many drives, you're going to be constantly replacing dead ones. It's not actually that bad! If you cram ten thousand drives into a few racks, your drive failures per week will be in the single digits. You could have someone come in once a month. > I have a feeling this is an expensive operation! It is, but my core point is that it would be expensive even if the drives were free. You need a certain amount of server horsepower and the physical resources to support it. This implies that you're not getting to stick 60 drives in a single chassis, so you need more labor as well. There was an estimate last year of $1500 for IA to store and serve a terabyte of data indefinitely. I'd love to see a breakdown of that number, how much goes to day 1 hardware, how much goes to year 1 hosting, how long that hardware is expected to last. But even the day 1 cost is definitely a lot more than $50 for 2TB worth of hard drive.
  - GordonS 8y ago
    > This is already factoring in 2x storage, so you just put each half in a different location. My bad, I missed that! > It is, but my core point is that it would be expensive even if the drives were free. On reflection, and after reading your reply, I agree :) > There was an estimate last year of $1500 for IA to store and serve a terabyte of data indefinitely. I assume that's $1500 per year?