1. SSD's are impractical. For 45x2TB we'd need about $125,000.
2. I think we're going to scrap the 20 spare drives idea and instead look toward 5-10.

125,000$ / 45 = ? 2,777.78$ each ?

Give or take. http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/06/2tb-ssd-runs-crazy-fast-burns-desks/

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Executive Director GPU Users Group Inc. -
brad@gpuug.org

1. SSD's are impractical. For 45x2TB we'd need about $125,000.
2. I think we're going to scrap the 20 spare drives idea and instead look toward 5-10.

125,000$ / 45 = ? 2,777.78$ each ?

Give or take. http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/06/2tb-ssd-runs-crazy-fast-burns-desks/

I think you might have low balled it a bit.
960GB $2700
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227788

Also finding SSD's of large capacity that are not cards right now is somewhat rare.

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

I don't want to rain on anyone's parade here, but you might want to consider solid state drives, as an alternative to hard drives. They come in a variety of flavors, from straight SATA replacement drives to the newer PCIe boards. With as much data as SAH moves, the increased speed and lower latency would be a big help, I would think.

BTW ... I'm a small stockholder of Fusion IO (who makes one of the better PCIe varieties), and I sent a quick email to their Investor Relations folks, telling them what a GREAT marketing idea it would be, to send you some as a corporate donation. Getting their name favorably in front of a million computer users could be a very good investment on their part. No response yet, but I'll keep my fingers crossed. Have you looked into any other corporate grants of hardware?

I spend most of my free time writing grants for the .org.

A few notes on the above:

1. SSD's are impractical. For 45x2TB we'd need about $125,000.
2. I think we're going to scrap the 20 spare drives idea and instead look toward 5-10.

It is about that the guys in the lab want/need. Not what we think they need. So even if they were like "we need a coffee pot" I honestly wouldn't mind.

OK, buy them a freakin' coffee pot, LOL.
A mini fridge, and a stock of Monster to keep in it.
I can see that.......

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

I hope you get brand new drives from them and not "refurbs" for the DOA's..

New drives may have the same issues as the new ones.
The advantage of any refubished unit is that it will have been repaired with modified hardware &/or firmware.

Had a lot of experience with refurbed drives have you?

I can tell you mine has all been bad. Almost like they took returned drives
and just sent them out to someone else . No refurbishment at all.

I hope you get brand new drives from them and not "refurbs" for the DOA's..

New drives may have the same issues as the new ones.
The advantage of any refubished unit is that it will have been repaired with modified hardware &/or firmware.

Had a lot of experience with refurbed drives have you?

I can tell you mine has all been bad. Almost like they took returned drives
and just sent them out to someone else . No refurbishment at all.

Not so here......mind you, I have only had a couple of comms with Seagate since I built my first computer almost 12 years ago. One then, another almost 10 years later......both issues were quickly handled.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

I hope you get brand new drives from them and not "refurbs" for the DOA's..

New drives may have the same issues as the new ones.
The advantage of any refubished unit is that it will have been repaired with modified hardware &/or firmware.

Had a lot of experience with refurbed drives have you?

I was in the electronics repair industry for almost 2 decades.
You're better off getting something that has beeen repaired, than getting a new unit with the same problem as the one that you returned.
The only time you're better off with a new unit is if it's a new revision & already has the patches/modifications that address the orginal issue.

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Grant
Darwin NT

...
Also finding SSD's of large capacity that are not cards right now is somewhat rare.

Something like a Violin 3140 would be nice. Anyone win a big lottery lately?

                                                                   Joe

I hope you get brand new drives from them and not "refurbs" for the DOA's..

New drives may have the same issues as the new ones.
The advantage of any refubished unit is that it will have been repaired with modified hardware &/or firmware.

Had a lot of experience with refurbed drives have you?

I was in the electronics repair industry for almost 2 decades.
You're better off getting something that has beeen repaired, than getting a new unit with the same problem as the one that you returned.
The only time you're better off with a new unit is if it's a new revision & already has the patches/modifications that address the orginal issue.

That's exactly what I was thinking, you can get refurbed stuff or new. Personally I would stick with new, you don't want something that is used and possibly borked from the offset despite rigorous testing. Plus there's the guarantee the GPU users have in that if the drives are dead they will be replaced at no cost (correct me if I'm wrong). That kind've redundancy is priceless for the Seti fellas.

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Member of the People Encouraging Niceness In Society club.

2. I think we're going to scrap the 20 spare drives idea and instead look toward 5-10.

10 spare hard drives is still a great many spares for a 45 hard drive array. That's a very high expected failure rate within a reasonable amount of time. For the manufacturers sake I hope they mostly fail after the 1 year warranty or they will be losing money fast.

It's a bit late now that the hard drives are allready in place, but you really should be getting enterprise grade hard drives for a server with high I/O 24/7. They cost more but are built to take the strain (less failures) and come with a five year warranty. That means five years with no spares required, although getting replacements for failed hard drives can take a couple of weeks so if you want a full array at all times you can get one or two spares. Five years is a long time in the world of data storage, technologies change, drives gets bigger and prices lower.

Sure it's a higher initial cost, but enterprise grade hard drives wouldn't exist if they didn't save money in the long run. Replacing and shipping failed hard drives cost money too.

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2. I think we're going to scrap the 20 spare drives idea and instead look toward 5-10.

10 spare hard drives is still a great many spares for a 45 hard drive array. That's a very high expected failure rate within a reasonable amount of time. For the manufacturers sake I hope they mostly fail after the 1 year warranty or they will be losing money fast.

It's a bit late now that the hard drives are allready in place, but you really should be getting enterprise grade hard drives for a server with high I/O 24/7. They cost more but are built to take the strain (less failures) and come with a five year warranty. That means five years with no spares required, although getting replacements for failed hard drives can take a couple of weeks so if you want a full array at all times you can get one or two spares. Five years is a long time in the world of data storage, technologies change, drives gets bigger and prices lower.

Sure it's a higher initial cost, but enterprise grade hard drives wouldn't exist if they didn't save money in the long run. Replacing and shipping failed hard drives cost money too.

The cost difference between enterprise class drives vs standard drives was enormous due to the flooding. Further SETI suggested we should use standard drives vs enterprise as Seagate drives had a good track record for longevity.

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Executive Director GPU Users Group Inc. -
brad@gpuug.org

The cost difference between enterprise class drives vs standard drives was enormous due to the flooding. Further SETI suggested we should use standard drives vs enterprise as Seagate drives had a good track record for longevity.

I didn't mean to start any sort of discussion about what they had asked-for or what we should provide.

My concern was "how many" and that was an academic exercise in expected failure rate and "practicality." In other words, I **would** say something if we planned to get 50 replacement drives, even if they asked for them, and that would only be in the form of a question: "Have you lost your minds?"

My original thought was that these were probably 3 or 5 year warranted hard drives (like many consumer drives) and that ten sounded like a lot of them to expect to fail at once; so why would you want to have 5 or more drives sitting around becoming obsolete when surely you wouldn't expect more than 5 to fail all at once and those could be replaced in the time it took to ship them back and forth <when they could be replaced under warranty>.

BUT, if you expect them to be out of warranty before they fail (a fair bet with a drive that's run 90 days without failing) then you might want to extend the life of the array to 3-5 years by having 10 sitting around.

The thing that complicates that is the Thailand flooding (and I'd rather have our problems than those of the real victims in Thailand by orders of magnitude) and the high price of these 6 G/s drives (which, in my experience aren't much faster than the 3 G/s drives as a practical matter - but then I'm not doing the I/O that SETI does where a few MB/s may add up over time).

I hereby apologize for even thinking about it; much less thinking about it out-loud.

Matt and Eric know what they want and why they want it, and they don't owe me an explanation.

Neither do you, Brad.

I appreciate what you are doing for the project.

[quote]I hope you get brand new drives from them and not "refurbs" for the DOA's..

New drives may have the same issues as the new ones.
The advantage of any refubished unit is that it will have been repaired with modified hardware &/or firmware.

Had a lot of experience with refurbed drives have you?

Ooops! You forgot the "I can tell you mine has all been bad. Almost like they took returned drives and just sent them out to someone else . No refurbishment at all."

I was in the electronics repair industry for almost 2 decades.

Meh, thirty plus years for me, last 12 at IBM as a Field Engineer <translation computer repair tech, PCs to AS400 and 937X> not that it matters to the thread.>

You're better off getting something that has beeen repaired,

Maybe. That's if it truly was repaired and not just turned around.

than getting a new unit with the same problem as the one that you returned.

And what guarantee is there that a New one will fail DOA like the first one did?

The only time you're better off with a new unit is if it's a new revision & already has the patches/modifications that address the orginal issue.

Actually I think you're better off with a hard drive that works in the first place instead of a DOA one. And you know a refurb has already failed once. Not something I'd want to put in a 24/7 machine. But it's not my call and I wish them luck with whatever they get.

You're better off getting something that has beeen repaired,

Maybe. That's if it truly was repaired and not just turned around.

As i said, you're better off getting something that has been repaired.

than getting a new unit with the same problem as the one that you returned.

And what guarantee is there that a New one will fail DOA like the first one did?

No guarantee. It could have been a one off. But if it wasn't a one off then you're better off getting one that has been repaired than getting a new one from the same series/revision/batch that still has underlying problems.

The only time you're better off with a new unit is if it's a new revision & already has the patches/modifications that address the orginal issue.

Actually I think you're better off with a hard drive that works in the first place instead of a DOA one. And you know a refurb has already failed once. Not something I'd want to put in a 24/7 machine.

So i'll repeat myself again.
It could have been a one off. But if it wasn't a one off then you're better off getting one that has been repaired than getting a new one from the same series/revision/batch that still has underlying problems.

For example the P67/H67 chipset problem.
Getting a new motherboard to replace a failed one would have resulted in another failure. Getting one that had the revised chipset wouldn't. Or you could have waited for a new motherboard with the revised chipset to be released- but until then any replacement board would have resulted in the same failure.

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Grant
Darwin NT

In my humble opinion.......
I bought Seagate server class drives last time out.......
Yes, there is a difference, folks.
Constellation series are a bit different than the usual.
They are intended for 24/7 opps, and are speced for such.

As I run them that way, they have served me well.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

My 2 150 GB Hitachi drives have been running 24/7 since January 2008. In the meanwhile, before the Thai floods, I have bough a 1 TB WD Caviar Green for 48 euros, It now costs three time as much. Another 500 GB Seagate Barracuda I have salvaged from a Telecom Italia set top box, Cubovision, which did not satisfy my needs. I am waiting for my Hitachis to fail, but they rumble on.
Tullio

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You're better off getting something that has beeen repaired,

Maybe. That's if it truly was repaired and not just turned around.

As i said, you're better off getting something that has been repaired.

And your guarantee that it's been repaired is?

than getting a new unit with the same problem as the one that you returned.

And what guarantee is there that a New one will fail DOA like the first one did?

No guarantee. It could have been a one off. But if it wasn't a one off then you're better off getting one that has been repaired than getting a new one from the same series/revision/batch that still has underlying problems.

Only if it's a problem that can be repaired if they repair it at all.

The only time you're better off with a new unit is if it's a new revision & already has the patches/modifications that address the orginal issue.

Actually I think you're better off with a hard drive that works in the first place instead of a DOA one. And you know a refurb has already failed once. Not something I'd want to put in a 24/7 machine.

So i'll repeat myself again.
It could have been a one off. But if it wasn't a one off then you're better off getting one that has been repaired than getting a new one from the same series/revision/batch that still has underlying problems.

For example the P67/H67 chipset problem.
Getting a new motherboard to replace a failed one would have resulted in another failure. Getting one that had the revised chipset wouldn't. Or you could have waited for a new motherboard with the revised chipset to be
released- but until then any replacement board would have resulted in the same failure.

Fresh herring here get your fresh herring.

Fresh herring here get your fresh herring.

?
Must be an American thing.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Had a call w/ SETI today. We'll likely be rolling out with two fundraisers this week along with two purchases of equipment using existing funds. This will be followed by at least one fundraiser for future equipment late in the week or early next week.

When all of this happens I'll start a new thread to keep everyone informed. Thanks everyone.

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Executive Director GPU Users Group Inc. -
brad@gpuug.org

New thread coming soon gents stay tuned.

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Executive Director GPU Users Group Inc. -
brad@gpuug.org