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Bulk Data Storage For The Common Man?

Posted by timothy on from the the-common-man-with-a-tb-a-month dept.

Vigyaan writes "Lately, I have been looking into different bulk data storage options available to a common man. My work depends on generating, storing and analyzing a large amount of data -- averaging about 1 TB per month. I would like to have a storage system which is automated, fast, reliable and most importantly does not cost the price of an eye. Right now, I have a 4 node Linux cluster with 10 large hard disks (total capacity 1.6 TB); data storage roughly costs about $0.60/GB (excluding the cost of PC hardware). But long term storage is painful -- DVDs cost about $0.10-$0.15/GB but takes too much human time and leaving data on hard disks makes me nervous because of possible failures. RAID is a possibility, but it increases the cost significantly. I was wondering, if Slashdot readers have any recommendations for a cheap automated way to store and retrieve data."

7 of 483 comments (clear)

  1. 1TB a month?!? by stinkydog · · Score: 5, Funny

    Short of launching his own space probe, the only way for this guy to consume a TB a month of storage is a serious porn habit. Just post your 'content' on Edonkey and it will be available when you 'need' it. You likely only watch them once anyway.

    SD

    --
    âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
    1. Re:1TB a month?!? by grasshoppa · · Score: 5, Funny

      Using this method, I have achieved my life long dream of tapeless ( well, everything-less ) backups.

      I simply make a tar.bz2 file with all my important files, filter it through gpg, then post it on edonkey, usually titled, "Olsen twins getting it on", and then usually the date.

      Viola, instant backup that is available to me whereever I may go.

      --
      Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
    2. Re:1TB a month?!? by gl4ss · · Score: 5, Funny

      ** You have obviously never heard of fMRI studies, have you?**

      oh shit! I totally missed the part of the history where FMRI scanners came commonplace for men.

      oh wait the whole ask slashdot blurb is twisted, the headline implies asking for datastorage possibilities for the common man - yet one of the first things mentioned that he needs it for his special job that generates tb's of data per month. by that definition he is not a common man, except that he hopes to have a miracle solution - that is quite common.

      still, a common man would choose whatever possibility gave the cheapest price per gb(probably harddrive). with dvd-r's he would end up burning multiple dvd-r's per day and it's kind of implied that the data would need to be retrievable so he would have to burn the same disc multiple times, even then it wouldn't be a sure thing.

      his needs are quite bigh though still, big enough to warrant for professional help since his likely going to be spending quite a bit of money on the thing.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    3. Re:1TB a month?!? by Zone-MR · · Score: 5, Funny

      Oh, so that explains why that "Olsen Twins Getting it on - 12 Mar 2003.avi" file I downloaded last week contained a zipped tar archive full of boring spreadsheets and a lot of donkey porn.

  2. spongedrive is best by cubyrop · · Score: 5, Funny

    i am responsible for providing storage solutions for a mid-sized content creation company which, through version archiving, accumulates near 1-200 GB per day. they require access to their media backups on a rolling basis, so tapes are not an option.

    i have found that a Teutonium cluster of 6.5 TB Spongedrives (either Cray or SecreTech are fine) fits the bill nicely. housed in a 15-unit rack server, the amoeba-shaped drives utilize BioLas technology to store data on 6-dimensional Moebius Cilia for a slick seek time of 0.00 ms.

    a cluster costs about $45,000 USD but the price should come down in 2004 Q4 when SecreTech launches their new 40-platter blackholium SCSI's.

    --
    If I could make this sig kill you, I would.
  3. Hijack Cassini by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... and program it as a repeater.

    It's about 90 minutes away, so at 250 Kbps that's over one terabit in storage on the way out there, and another terabit on the way back.

    Worst-case access latency is about three hours, though. Maybe the hard disks are a better idea.

    If you send your probe^H^H^H^H^H repeater to Alpha Centauri, you'll get more than 20,000 times the storage capacity.

  4. Only on slashdot by gexen · · Score: 5, Funny

    Only on Slashdot would they start talking about huge storage arrays and title it "for the common man"