[Noisebridge-discuss] Another Hub Banished to Obsolescence

[Andy Isaacson]

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 08:45:32PM -0700, Jonathan Lassoff wrote:
> > I've been meaning to build a 4-8 node storage cluster and try out Ceph
> > at (moderate) scale:
> 
> Neato! There's definitely some more computers with many-head SATA disk
> bays.

SATA, really?  Most of the bays I saw at 2169 when last I looked (which
was many months ago to be sure) were SCSI, SCA or worse.

If we do have a few SATA chassis that could be fun.

> If only electricity wasn't so expensive.

Yeah, high-power machines suck.  The SATA drives generally draw 6-12
watts per spindle, and if you are careful you can get a CPU+mobo that
draws 10-20W or so, but most servers are bad ... one of the Xeon boxes
in the donations pile draws 400W with no disks and idle CPUs!

A minimum interesting storage cluster of 4 nodes with 4 spindles each
would cost around $50 per month in power (assuming 9W/spindle, 15W/mobo,
30c/KWh) if running 24/7.

> Perhaps a remotely-switched
> power strip that'll turn off the cluster when it's not in use?

There was an IPPower 4-port, I think DrJ used it for some data center
stuff at some point?  I don't know if it's in use now.

-andy