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Based on the data, it seems they have 4.4 petabytes of storage under management. Neat. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E4MS84SbSwWILVPAgeIipltAo6BM3yJ

Based on the data, it seems they have 4.4 petabytes of storage under management. Neat. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E4MS84SbSwWILVPAgeIipltAo6BM3yJeR1w6qRyZj7w/edit?gid=0#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E4MS84SbSwWILVPAgeIi...

remram 2y ago
Nowadays you can get a petabyte in a single machine (50 drives 20TB each).
- malfist 2y ago
  Out of curiosity, what server cases can actually accommodate 50 drives?
  - walrus01 2y ago
    If you google "supermicro 72 drive server" it's definitely a thing that exists, but these use double-length drive trays where each tray contains two drives. Meaning that you need a "whole machine can go down" software architecture of redundancy at a very large scale to make these useful, since pulling one tray to replace a drive will take two drives offline. More realistically the normal version of the same supermicro chassis which has 1 drive per tray is 36 drives in 1 server. There are other less publicly well known things with 72 to 96 drive trays in a single 'server' which are manufactured by taiwanese OEMs for large scale operators. The supermicro is just the best visual example I can think of right now with a well laid out marketing webpage. edit: some photos https://www.servethehome.com/supermicro-ssg-6047r-e1r72l-72x-35-drive-4u-storage-server-released/ https://www.servethehome.com/supermicro-ssg-6047r-e1r72l-72x...
    - Lammy 2y ago
      > Meaning that you need a "whole machine can go down" software architecture of redundancy at a very large scale to make these useful Also some serious cooling to avoid the drives in the front cooking the drives in the back (assuming front-to-back airflow).
      - numpad0 2y ago
        You don't LEGO assemble rackmount servers. Chassis come with figurative array of jet engines with 12V/0.84A -ish fans that generate characteristic ecstatic harmony. They're designed, supposedly, to take 35C air to keep drives in front at 40C and GPUs at back <95C.
        Lammy 2y ago
        > You don't LEGO assemble rackmount servers. You may not, but plenty of people do.
  - remram 2y ago
    Those are specialized NAS chassis. We have a number of them, 4U size, too heavy to move when the drives are in. edit: They look like this: https://knowledgebase.45drives.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/20190405_163715-1024x768.jpg https://knowledgebase.45drives.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/0... (image from ddg)
    - fc417fc802 2y ago
      > too heavy to move when the drives are in Careful not to drop it.
  - manquer 2y ago
    https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/resources/storage-pod https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/resources/storage-po... This is what backblaze use themselves currently able to hold 60 drives .
  - Lammy 2y ago
    iStarUSA are my go-to for my whitebox server builds, and they sell a 9U 50-drive hot-swap enclosure: https://www.istarusa.com/en/istarusa/products.php?model=E9M50 https://www.istarusa.com/en/istarusa/products.php?model=E9M5...
  - justsomehnguy 2y ago
    aic j4108 for 108 drives. Not a server per se, but you just take one 1U server and daisy chain a lot of those JBOD chassis for the needed capacity. You can have 1080 disks in a 42" rack.
- manquer 2y ago
  Backblaze custom designed and uses what they call a pod holding 60units for a long time now https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/resources/storage-pod https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/resources/storage-po...
selectodude 2y ago
Exabytes. 4.4 exabytes.
- userbinator 2y ago
  An amazing amount if you consider that 16EB is the amount of data a 64-bit quantity can address, and this is over a quarter of that.
  - dekhn 2y ago
    There was a dashboard where the total storage at Google was tracked and they had to update it from 64 bits for this reason... about a decade or more ago.
  - echoangle 2y ago
    Wow, that’s a cool stat. I wonder if people will ever seriously use 16EB of memory in a single system and will need to change to a more-than-64-bit architecture or if 64 bit is truly enough. This has „640k ought to be enough for anybody“ potential (and I know he didn’t say that).
    - rwmj 2y ago
      From 2011: https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/when-will-disk-sizes-go-beyond-64-bits/ https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/when-will-disk-sizes-g... nbdkit can emulate disks up to 2^63-1 which is also the same maximum size that the Linux kernel currently supports: https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2018/09/05/nbdkit-for-loopback-pt-5-8-exabyte-btrfs-filesystem/ https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2018/09/05/nbdkit-for-loopback-pt... https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2018/09/06/nbdkit-for-loopback-pt-6-giant-file-backed-disks-for-testing/ https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2018/09/06/nbdkit-for-loopback-pt...
    - fc417fc802 2y ago
      > need to change to a more-than-64-bit architecture Perhaps we don't need a single flat address space with byte-addressable granularity at those sizes? I wonder how an 8 bit byte, 48 bit word system would have fared. 2*32 is easy to exhaust in routine tasks; 2*48 not so much.
m3nu 2y ago
4,414,142 TB = 4.4 Exabyte
theandrewbailey 2y ago
A petabyte is 1,000 terabytes. 4.4 petabytes wouldn't come anywhere near Backblaze's storage needs.

remram 2y ago

Nowadays you can get a petabyte in a single machine (50 drives 20TB each).

malfist 2y ago
Out of curiosity, what server cases can actually accommodate 50 drives?
- walrus01 2y ago
  If you google "supermicro 72 drive server" it's definitely a thing that exists, but these use double-length drive trays where each tray contains two drives. Meaning that you need a "whole machine can go down" software architecture of redundancy at a very large scale to make these useful, since pulling one tray to replace a drive will take two drives offline. More realistically the normal version of the same supermicro chassis which has 1 drive per tray is 36 drives in 1 server. There are other less publicly well known things with 72 to 96 drive trays in a single 'server' which are manufactured by taiwanese OEMs for large scale operators. The supermicro is just the best visual example I can think of right now with a well laid out marketing webpage. edit: some photos https://www.servethehome.com/supermicro-ssg-6047r-e1r72l-72x-35-drive-4u-storage-server-released/ https://www.servethehome.com/supermicro-ssg-6047r-e1r72l-72x...
  - Lammy 2y ago
    > Meaning that you need a "whole machine can go down" software architecture of redundancy at a very large scale to make these useful Also some serious cooling to avoid the drives in the front cooking the drives in the back (assuming front-to-back airflow).
    - numpad0 2y ago
      You don't LEGO assemble rackmount servers. Chassis come with figurative array of jet engines with 12V/0.84A -ish fans that generate characteristic ecstatic harmony. They're designed, supposedly, to take 35C air to keep drives in front at 40C and GPUs at back <95C.
      - Lammy 2y ago
        > You don't LEGO assemble rackmount servers. You may not, but plenty of people do.
- remram 2y ago
  Those are specialized NAS chassis. We have a number of them, 4U size, too heavy to move when the drives are in. edit: They look like this: https://knowledgebase.45drives.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/20190405_163715-1024x768.jpg https://knowledgebase.45drives.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/0... (image from ddg)
  - fc417fc802 2y ago
    > too heavy to move when the drives are in Careful not to drop it.
- manquer 2y ago
  https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/resources/storage-pod https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/resources/storage-po... This is what backblaze use themselves currently able to hold 60 drives .
- Lammy 2y ago
  iStarUSA are my go-to for my whitebox server builds, and they sell a 9U 50-drive hot-swap enclosure: https://www.istarusa.com/en/istarusa/products.php?model=E9M50 https://www.istarusa.com/en/istarusa/products.php?model=E9M5...
- justsomehnguy 2y ago
  aic j4108 for 108 drives. Not a server per se, but you just take one 1U server and daisy chain a lot of those JBOD chassis for the needed capacity. You can have 1080 disks in a 42" rack.
manquer 2y ago
Backblaze custom designed and uses what they call a pod holding 60units for a long time now https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/resources/storage-pod https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/resources/storage-po...

selectodude 2y ago

Exabytes. 4.4 exabytes.

userbinator 2y ago
An amazing amount if you consider that 16EB is the amount of data a 64-bit quantity can address, and this is over a quarter of that.
- dekhn 2y ago
  There was a dashboard where the total storage at Google was tracked and they had to update it from 64 bits for this reason... about a decade or more ago.
- echoangle 2y ago
  Wow, that’s a cool stat. I wonder if people will ever seriously use 16EB of memory in a single system and will need to change to a more-than-64-bit architecture or if 64 bit is truly enough. This has „640k ought to be enough for anybody“ potential (and I know he didn’t say that).
  - rwmj 2y ago
    From 2011: https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/when-will-disk-sizes-go-beyond-64-bits/ https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/when-will-disk-sizes-g... nbdkit can emulate disks up to 2^63-1 which is also the same maximum size that the Linux kernel currently supports: https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2018/09/05/nbdkit-for-loopback-pt-5-8-exabyte-btrfs-filesystem/ https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2018/09/05/nbdkit-for-loopback-pt... https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2018/09/06/nbdkit-for-loopback-pt-6-giant-file-backed-disks-for-testing/ https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2018/09/06/nbdkit-for-loopback-pt...
  - fc417fc802 2y ago
    > need to change to a more-than-64-bit architecture Perhaps we don't need a single flat address space with byte-addressable granularity at those sizes? I wonder how an 8 bit byte, 48 bit word system would have fared. 2*32 is easy to exhaust in routine tasks; 2*48 not so much.

m3nu 2y ago

4,414,142 TB = 4.4 Exabyte

theandrewbailey 2y ago

A petabyte is 1,000 terabytes. 4.4 petabytes wouldn't come anywhere near Backblaze's storage needs.