4 ms·

S3 gives you multi-host, multi-region redundancy. Putting it all in one box is asking for trouble. What if the raid controller grows a bug and corrupts on write

by jwatte 15y ago

S3 gives you multi-host, multi-region redundancy. Putting it all in one box is asking for trouble. What if the raid controller grows a bug and corrupts on write? It's happened. What if there's a fire in the building that has both your server and your back-up? Eggs, meet basket!

throwaway64 15y ago
you could easily achieve double, triple, or even quadruple co-located redundancy for far less than what s3 would charge for 40TB. Before anyone replies about needing a "24/7 sysadmin", if you are running stuff at this scale: A) You already have a sysdmin, or somebody competent enough to do the setup/maintenance work. Running off s3 doesn't magically mean you never need deal with sysadmin issues. B) Rack providers will swap out hardware if you put in a ticket, so you can provide multi-regional redundancy for much much much cheaper than amazon would charge you ($60000*2 for 2 regions gets expensive fast)
vl 15y ago
I believe S3 is multi-zone, but not multi-region.
JoeAltmaier 15y ago
S3 fails too, right? Didn't they have an internal network issue this year, and go down for hours? Anything you haven't tried, doesn't work. That's a truism in computing. I don't think Amazon tries failing-over entire data centers very often (have they ever?), so when it needed to happen, it didn't work. Anyway, I'm thinking this guy has only to back up his photo store about once a day to (something big) and put it in his bank box, and he's good to go, at least for a photo site.
- jodrellblank 15y ago
  Anything you haven't tried, doesn't work. That's a truism in computing. (Aside) I wonder if this is more accurately stated: Anything you haven't tried recently, doesn't work. Even if you have tried it recently, that's no guarantee. Or, to paraphrase Hofstadter's Law, the probability of something working some time after you last tried it drops surprisingly quickly, even when you take into account this rule.
- gujk 15y ago
  Amazon fails over data centers at least once a year in fire drill testing. Amazon has more backups, testing, and monitoring than 99.9% of small or midsized organizations.

by jwatte 15y ago

throwaway64 15y ago

you could easily achieve double, triple, or even quadruple co-located redundancy for far less than what s3 would charge for 40TB. Before anyone replies about needing a "24/7 sysadmin", if you are running stuff at this scale: A) You already have a sysdmin, or somebody competent enough to do the setup/maintenance work. Running off s3 doesn't magically mean you never need deal with sysadmin issues. B) Rack providers will swap out hardware if you put in a ticket, so you can provide multi-regional redundancy for much much much cheaper than amazon would charge you ($60000*2 for 2 regions gets expensive fast)

vl 15y ago

I believe S3 is multi-zone, but not multi-region.

JoeAltmaier 15y ago

S3 fails too, right? Didn't they have an internal network issue this year, and go down for hours? Anything you haven't tried, doesn't work. That's a truism in computing. I don't think Amazon tries failing-over entire data centers very often (have they ever?), so when it needed to happen, it didn't work. Anyway, I'm thinking this guy has only to back up his photo store about once a day to (something big) and put it in his bank box, and he's good to go, at least for a photo site.

jodrellblank 15y ago
Anything you haven't tried, doesn't work. That's a truism in computing. (Aside) I wonder if this is more accurately stated: Anything you haven't tried recently, doesn't work. Even if you have tried it recently, that's no guarantee. Or, to paraphrase Hofstadter's Law, the probability of something working some time after you last tried it drops surprisingly quickly, even when you take into account this rule.
gujk 15y ago
Amazon fails over data centers at least once a year in fire drill testing. Amazon has more backups, testing, and monitoring than 99.9% of small or midsized organizations.