{"id":92645,"date":"2019-09-24T06:44:59","date_gmt":"2019-09-24T13:44:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/?p=92645"},"modified":"2025-12-11T13:41:56","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T21:41:56","slug":"petabytes-on-a-budget-10-years-and-counting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/petabytes-on-a-budget-10-years-and-counting\/","title":{"rendered":"Petabytes on a Budget: 10 Years and Counting"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"A<\/a><\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n
Editor’s note:<\/strong> This post reflects Backblaze Computer Backup pricing at the time it was published.<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This post is for all of the storage geeks out there who have followed the adventures of Backblaze and our Storage Pods over the years. The rest of you are welcome to come along for the ride.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

It has been 10 years since Backblaze introduced our Storage Pod to the world. In September 2009, we announced our hulking, eye-catching, red 4U storage server equipped with 45 hard drives delivering 67 terabytes of storage for just $7,867 — that was about $0.11 a gigabyte. As part of that announcement, we open-sourced the design for what we dubbed Storage Pods, telling you and everyone like you how to build one, and many of you did<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Backblaze Storage Pod version 1 was announced on our blog<\/a> with little fanfare. We thought it would be interesting to a handful of folks — readers like you. In fact, it wasn\u2019t even called version 1, as no one had ever considered there would be a version 2, much less a version 3, 4, 4.5, 5, or 6. We were wrong. The Backblaze Storage Pod struck a chord<\/a> with many IT and storage folks who were offended by having to pay a king\u2019s ransom for a high density storage system. \u201cI can build that for a tenth of the price,\u201d you could almost hear them muttering to themselves. Mutter or not, we thought the same thing, and version 1 was born.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The Podfather<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Tim, the \u201cPodfather\u201d as we know him<\/a>, was the Backblaze lead in creating the first Storage Pod. He had design help from our friends at Protocase, who built the first three generations of Storage Pods for Backblaze and also spun out a company named 45 Drives<\/a> to sell their own versions of the Storage Pod<\/a> — that\u2019s open source at its best. Before we decided on the version 1 design, there were a few experiments along the way:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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\"Wooden<\/a><\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u00a0<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n
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\"Octopod\"<\/a><\/figure>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u00a0<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The original Storage Pod was prototyped by building a wooden pod or two. We needed to test the software while the first metal pods were being constructed.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The Octopod<\/em> was a quick and dirty response to receiving the wrong SATA cables — ones that were too long and glowed. Yes, there are holes drilled in the bottom of the pod.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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\"Pre-1<\/a><\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u00a0<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n
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\"Early<\/a><\/figure>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u00a0<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The original faceplate shown above was used on about 10 pre-1.0 Storage Pods. It was updated to the three circle design just prior to Storage Pod 1.0.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Why are Storage Pods red? When we had the first ones built, the manufacturer had a batch of red paint left over that could be used on our pods, and it was free.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Back in 2007, when we started Backblaze<\/a>, there wasn\u2019t a whole lot of affordable choices for storing large quantities of data. Our goal was to charge $5\/month for unlimited data storage for one computer<\/a>. We decided to build our own storage servers when it became apparent that, if we were to use the other solutions available, we\u2019d have to charge a whole lot more money. Storage Pod 1.0 allowed us to store one petabyte of data for about $81,000. Today we\u2019ve lowered that to about $35,000 with Storage Pod 6.0.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

We Must Have Done Something Right<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The Backblaze Storage Pod was more than just affordable data storage. Version 1.0 introduced or popularized three fundamental changes to storage design: 1) You could build a system out of commodity parts and it would work, 2) You could mount hard drives vertically and they would still spin, and 3) You could use consumer hard drives in the system. It\u2019s hard to determine which of these three features offended and\/or excited more people. It is fair to say that ten years out, things worked out in our favor, as we currently have about 900 petabytes<\/a> of storage in production on the platform.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Over the last 10 years, people have warmed up to our design, or at least elements of the design. Starting with 45 Drives, multitudes of companies have worked on and introduced various designs for high density storage systems ranging from 45 to 102 drives in a 4U chassis, so today the list of high-density storage systems that use vertically mounted drives is pretty impressive:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\t
Company<\/th>Server<\/th>Drive Count<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
45 Drives<\/td>Storinator S45<\/td>45<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
45 Drives<\/td>Storinator XL60<\/td>60<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Chenbro<\/td>RM43160<\/td>60<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Chenbro<\/td>RM43699<\/td>100<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Dell<\/td>DSS 7000<\/td>90<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
HPE<\/td>Cloudline CL5200<\/td>80<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
HPE<\/td>Cloudline CL5800<\/td>100<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
NetGear\u00a0<\/td>ReadyNAS 4360X<\/td>60<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Newisys<\/td>NDS 4450<\/td>60<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Quanta<\/td>QuantaGrid D51PL-4U<\/td>102<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Quanta<\/td>QuantaPlex T21P-4U<\/td>70<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Seagate\u00a0<\/td>Exos AP 4U100<\/td>96<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Supermicro<\/td>SuperStorage 6049P-E1CR60L<\/td>60<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Supermicro<\/td>SuperStorage 6049P-E1CR45L<\/td>45<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Tyan<\/td>Thunder SX FA100-B7118<\/td>100<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Viking Enterprise Solutions<\/td>NSS-4602<\/td>60<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Viking Enterprise Solutions<\/td>NDS-4900<\/td>90<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Viking Enterprise Solutions<\/td>NSS-41000<\/td>100<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Western Digital<\/td>Ultrastar Serv60+8<\/td>60<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Wiwynn<\/td>SV7000G2<\/td>72<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n
<\/td><\/td><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tfoot>\n<\/table>\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Another driver in the development of some of these systems is the Open Compute<\/a> Project (OCP). Formed in 2011, they gather and share ideas and designs for data storage, rack designs, and related technologies. The group is managed by The Open Compute Project Foundation as a 501(c)(6) and counts many industry luminaries in the storage business as members.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

What Have We Done Lately?<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In technology land, 10 years of anything is a long time. What was exciting then is expected now. And the same thing has happened to our beloved Storage Pod. We have introduced updates and upgrades over the years<\/a> twisting the usual dials: cost down, speed up, capacity up, vibration down, and so on. All good things. But, we can\u2019t fool you, especially if you\u2019ve read this far. You know that Storage Pod 6.0<\/a> was introduced in April 2016 and quite frankly it\u2019s been crickets ever since as it relates to Storage Pods. Three plus years of non-innovation. Why?<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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  1. If it ain\u2019t broke, don\u2019t fix it. Storage Pod 6.0 is built in the US by Equus Compute Solutions<\/a>, our contract manufacturer, and it works great. Production costs are well understood, performance is fine, and the new higher density drives perform quite well in the 6.0 chassis.<\/li>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
  2. Disk migrations kept us busy. From Q2 2016 through Q2 2019 we migrated over 53,000 drives. We replaced 2, 3, and 4 terabyte drives with 8, 10, and 12 terabyte drives, doubling, tripling and sometimes quadrupling the storage density<\/a> of a storage pod.<\/li>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
  3. Pod upgrades kept us busy. From Q2 2016 through Q1 2019, we upgraded our older V2, V3, and V4.5 storage pods to V6.0. Then we crushed a few of the older ones with a MegaBot<\/a> and gave a bunch more away<\/a>. Today there are no longer any stand-alone storage pods; they are all members of a Backblaze Vault<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
  4. Lots of data kept us busy. In Q2 2016, we had 250 petabytes of data storage in production. Today, we have 900 petabytes. That\u2019s a lot of data you folks gave us (thank you by the way) and a lot of new systems to deploy. The chart below shows the challenge our data center techs faced.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n\r\n\r\n
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    \"Petabytes<\/a><\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n

    In other words, our data center folks were really, really busy, and not interested in shiny new things. Now that we\u2019ve hired a bunch more DC techs, let\u2019s talk about what\u2019s next.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

    Storage Pod Version 7.0 — Almost<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

    Yes, there is a Backblaze Storage Pod 7.0 on the drawing board. Here is a short list of some of the features we are looking at:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n