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CODE4LIB  August 2009

CODE4LIB August 2009

Subject:

Re: digital storage

From:

Tim McGeary <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

[log in to unmask]

Date:

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:31:08 -0400

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (186 lines)

Related to our discussion:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125139942345664387.html

I particularly like the quote at the end:

> "Digital information lasts forever -- or five years," says RAND Corp.
> computer analyst Jeff Rothenberg, "whichever comes first."

Tim McGeary
Team Leader, Library Technology
Lehigh University
610-758-4998
[log in to unmask]
Google Talk: timmcgeary
Yahoo IM: timmcgeary

Edward Iglesias wrote:
> Thanks to all of you who answered. Crowdsourcing does work if you
> pick the right crowd. We have been looking at the S3 possibility but
> I agree this would have to be a second copy. The policy and
> institutional support comments from my tokayo
>
> see http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tocayo
>
> seem especially appropriate. I am going to include a link on our
> staff blog to this thread as a resource.
>
> Thanks again,
>
> Edward Iglesias
>
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 8:59 PM, Edward M.
> Corrado<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Joe Atzberger wrote:
>>> On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 4:25 PM, Edward M. Corrado
>>> <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Nate Vack wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 1:57 PM, Ryan
>>>>> Ordway<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> $213,360 over 3 years
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> If you're ONLY looking at storage costs, SATA drives in
>>>>> enterprise RAID
>>>>>
>>>>>> systems range from about $1.00/GB to about $1.25/GB for
>>>>>> online storage.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> Yeah -- but if you're looking only at storage costs, you'll
>>>>> have an inaccurate estimate of your costs. You've got power,
>>>>> cooling, sysadmin time, and replacements for failed disks. If
>>>>> you want an apples-to-apples comparison, you'll want an
>>>>> offsite mirror, as well.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm not saying S3 is always cost-effective -- but in our
>>>>> experience, the costs of the disks themselves is dwarfed by
>>>>> the costs of the related infrastructure.
>>>>>
>>>>> I agree that the cost of storage is only one factor. I have
>>>>> to wonder
>>>>>
>>>> though, how much more staff time do you need for local storage
>>>> than cloud storage? I don't know the answer but I'm not sure it
>>>> is much more than setting up S3 storage, especially if you have
>>>> a good partnership with your storage vendor.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Support relationships, especially regarding storage are very
>>> costly. When I worked at a midsize datacenter, we implemented a
>>> backup solution with STORServer and tivoli. Both hardware and
>>> software were considerably costly. Initial and ongoing support,
>>> while indispensable was basically as much as the cost of the
>>> hardware every few years.
>>>
>> They can be depending on what you are doing and what choices on
>> software you make, but for long term preservation purposes they
>> don't have to be nearly as expensive as what Ryan calculated S3 to
>> cost. If you shop around you can get a quality 36GB array with 3 yr
>> warranty for say $30,000 that is almost $180,000 less than S3
>> (probably much less, I'm be less than generous with my Sun
>> discounts and only briefly looked at there prices). Even if we use
>> the double your cost for support, it is still over $50,000 a year
>> less for 3 years. Yes, we might need some expertise, but running a
>> 36TB preservation storage array is not a $50,000 a year job and
>> besides, what is wrong with growing local expertise?
>>
>> ...
>>>> Yes, maybe you save on staff time patching software on your
>>>> storage array, but that is not a significant amount of time -
>>>> esp. since you are still going to have some local storage, and
>>>> there isn't much difference in staff time in doing 2 TB vs. 20
>>>> TB.
>>>>
>>>
>>> There's a real difference. I can get 2 TB in a single HDD, for
>>> example this one for $200 at NewEgg:
>>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148413
>>> <http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148413>
>>>
>>>
>>> Any high school kid can install that. 20 TB requires some kind
>>> of additional structure and additional expertise.
>>>
>> Well building a 20 TB storage device and getting it to work can
>> actually be very cheap and doesn't require a PhD (just a local
>> GNU/Linux geek who likes to play with hardware) if you are OK with
>> a home grown solution. I wouldn't be satisfied with that, but I
>> don't see how a commercial offering that adds up to $150,000 worth
>> of expertise and infrastructure.
>>
>>> You may some time on the initial configuration, but you still
>>> need to
>>>
>>>> configure cloud storage. Is cloud storage that much easier/less
>>>> time consuming to configure than an iSCSI device? Replacement
>>>> for disks would be covered under your warranty or support
>>>> contract (at least I would hope you would have one).
>>>>
>>>
>>> Warranties expire and force you into ill-timed, hardly-afforded
>>> and dangerous-to-your-data upgrades. Sorta like some ILS systems
>>> with which we are all familiar.
>> Yes some application upgrades can cause issues, but how is that
>> different if your application and/or storage is in a cloud?
>>
>>> The cloud doesn't necessarily stay the same, but the part you
>>> care about (data in, data out) does.
>>>
>> How do you know they won't change their cloud models? And you don't
>> even have a warranty with the cloud. They won't even guarantee they
>> won't delete your data.
>>
>> As long as you use a common standards based method of storage, you
>> won't have any more issues getting it to work than you will getting
>> future application servers to work with the cloud. While I'm not a
>> huge fan of NFS I've been using it for many years with no problems
>> due to changes in NFS or operating systems or hardware. NFS has
>> been available to the public for about 20 years. Occasionally you
>> may need to migrate it from one platform or one machine to another
>> but you very well need to do that with clouds as well. Maybe you
>> are using S3 but for whatever reason Sun gives you a better deal
>> with better terms and guarantees for using their cloud. Maybe
>> Amazon drops S3. Maybe because S3 moves servers to a country that
>> you are not legally allow to have your data in. Yes, you have to
>> plan for migration to new platforms but I fail to see how you don't
>> need to do that with the cloud. Really any major technological
>> decision should have an exit plan. Preservation storage is not
>> different in that and the cloud doesn't change that.
>>
>> Edward
>>
>>
>>>> The power and cooling can be a savings, but in many cases the
>>>> library or individual departments don't pay for electricity, so
>>>> while *someone* pays the cost, it might not be the individual
>>>> department. Cooling and electricity costs are an actually a
>>>> great argument for tape for large-scale storage. Tape might
>>>> seem old fashioned, but in many applications it by far offers
>>>> the best value of long term storage per GB.
>>>>
>>>
>>> It's true, tape is still an worthwhile option. Alternatives like
>>> optical or magneto-optical media just have not kept up.
>>>
>>> Again, I'm not totally against the cloud and there are some
>>> things I think
>>>
>>>> it could be very useful for, but the cloud doesn't make up for
>>>> the lack of (or just bad) planning.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Yeah, there's no system good enough to compensate for bad
>>> planning and management. --Joe
>>>
>

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