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At this point, Backblaze is a serious "influencer", and HDD companies would be smart to make sure they get the best possible drives, even if the rest of us get

At this point, Backblaze is a serious "influencer", and HDD companies would be smart to make sure they get the best possible drives, even if the rest of us get junk. I mean "doing it well for an influencer and shafting everyone else" is far cheaper and easier than just making a solid and reliable product consistently. That's such old-fashioned thinking these days. :)

ValentineC 6y ago
> At this point, Backblaze is a serious "influencer", and HDD companies would be smart to make sure they get the best possible drives, even if the rest of us get junk. I don't know if they're as budget-conscious as they used to be, but Backblaze used to "shuck" drives from externals because they're cheaper [1]. If this is still the case, then their stats should be similar to hobbyists who are doing this too. [1] https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze_drive_farming/ https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze_drive_farming/
- giantrobot 6y ago
  I think part of their shucking issue was from the floods in Thailand in 2011 that put a huge constraint on OEM drives. There were plenty of external drives in the channel so BackBlaze ordered a ton and shucked them. While the shucked drives might not have had the warranties or even the specs of OEM drives they might have ordered the aggregate nature of their storage meant they were a good replacement.
  - brianwski 6y ago
    Disclaimer: I work at Backblaze and was there during the Thailand flooding. > While the shucked drives might not have had the warranties We haven't shucked drives in a while. The main advantage was when this artificial price difference that occurred in the Thailand drive crisis where a "raw drive" cost $400, but if it was put inside a $7 USB enclosure the same drive including the USB enclosure suddenly only cost $200. At the time, our business model literally wouldn't survive the cost increase, it was shuck drives or go out of business. :-) We assume the issue was that mostly "rich companies" bought "raw drives" and could afford the increase in price, but "poor consumers" bought drives in USB enclosures and couldn't afford the increase. We still watch the prices though. You can think of it this way: if 3% of the drives fail but don't have a warranty because they were shucked, then we have to save more than 3% (plus the cost of the "shucking" process) to make it worth it. That rarely happens anymore. I think partly because as the volume of drives that we purchase has gone up we have the ability to get better "bulk discounts" than we had in the earliest days. Also, the process of "drive farming" where the retail stores would limit it to "2 per customer" or whatever would get much harder at our current scale.

ValentineC 6y ago

> At this point, Backblaze is a serious "influencer", and HDD companies would be smart to make sure they get the best possible drives, even if the rest of us get junk. I don't know if they're as budget-conscious as they used to be, but Backblaze used to "shuck" drives from externals because they're cheaper [1]. If this is still the case, then their stats should be similar to hobbyists who are doing this too. [1] https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze_drive_farming/ https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze_drive_farming/

giantrobot 6y ago
I think part of their shucking issue was from the floods in Thailand in 2011 that put a huge constraint on OEM drives. There were plenty of external drives in the channel so BackBlaze ordered a ton and shucked them. While the shucked drives might not have had the warranties or even the specs of OEM drives they might have ordered the aggregate nature of their storage meant they were a good replacement.
- brianwski 6y ago
  Disclaimer: I work at Backblaze and was there during the Thailand flooding. > While the shucked drives might not have had the warranties We haven't shucked drives in a while. The main advantage was when this artificial price difference that occurred in the Thailand drive crisis where a "raw drive" cost $400, but if it was put inside a $7 USB enclosure the same drive including the USB enclosure suddenly only cost $200. At the time, our business model literally wouldn't survive the cost increase, it was shuck drives or go out of business. :-) We assume the issue was that mostly "rich companies" bought "raw drives" and could afford the increase in price, but "poor consumers" bought drives in USB enclosures and couldn't afford the increase. We still watch the prices though. You can think of it this way: if 3% of the drives fail but don't have a warranty because they were shucked, then we have to save more than 3% (plus the cost of the "shucking" process) to make it worth it. That rarely happens anymore. I think partly because as the volume of drives that we purchase has gone up we have the ability to get better "bulk discounts" than we had in the earliest days. Also, the process of "drive farming" where the retail stores would limit it to "2 per customer" or whatever would get much harder at our current scale.