Further along in the Backblaze storage pod build
Since I’ve last written about the Backblaze storage pod, I bought nearly the rest of my components – the hard drives and the power supplies. I still haven’t picked up my anti-vibration foam rubber pad that will sit between my hard drives and the top of the case, but I see this component as relatively minor in the grand scheme of things.
Hard Drives
I went with the 1.5TB Seagate Barracuda 5400 RPM drives from NewEgg.com. The cost per drive was $109.99. I was able to use a coupon to get $10 off three of the drives. NewEgg.com has since run one sale where the drives were $99 per drive, and you may be able to shop around this Christmas season to find them cheaper. Obviously, you could go higher or lower capacity, higher drive speed and choose a different manufacturer if you want, but I am trying to stick as close to the Backblaze plans as possible.
Power Supplies
I got my power supplies from the guys at FrozenCPU.com. I ended up choosing Enermax Revolution 85+ 850W power supplies based upon the recommendation of the staff at FrozenCPU.com. I was looking along the lines of a modular PSU since they would give me the most flexibility when it comes to wiring things up. I had Chris at FrozenCPU.com do all the custom wiring work. The total cost there was $519.98 for the PSU’s and an additional $200 for the custom wiring work.
Why pay for the wiring of the power supplies? Since Chris is a pro at wiring up PSU’s and I’m not, I figured I’d let the pros do their job. It was much easier to have him do the work than for me to struggle through it.
What’s Next?
My plans are to create some easy-to-follow directions for setting up the case and components. Hopefully, I can get this together rather quickly. Keep an eye here for the setup guide in the coming future.
I’ve gotten my initial OS of choice (OpenSolaris) loaded on the boot drive, but I haven’t had a chance to power things up and make sure everything works according to plan. I know there will be updates for the OS and probably some BIOS and firmware updates as well to pick up. I just hope they are all compatible with OpenSolaris.
As always, any questions or comments, let me know.
I’m trying to build one of these backblaze pods. But seems that Intel BOXDG43NB is pretty much dead as far as being able to buy one. Whats the next better choice?
Need to get a mobo for this server.
In the initial blog post by Backblaze (http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/petabytes-on-a-budget-how-to-build-cheap-cloud-storage/), they touch on why they went with this mobo. If you’re sticking with the stock hardware (using their suggestions for the SATA cards, processor, etc.) you may want to read up on their logic and go with a mobo that will work with their list of hardware.
If you’ve gotten different hardware (once again, SATA cards, processor, etc.) you could probably go with just about any mobo that will support it. Backblaze did testing and found this hardware combo to provide the best performance. I haven’t seen any of their data to know how much of a performance difference there was with other hardware. Another thing to keep in mind would be to make sure whatever mobo you choose, your OS supports it.
You may want to check Intel’s site and see if they’ve released another mobo along the same product line. Typically, most of the components stay the same, just faster throughput capabilities.
-Steve
Does anyone make these things? Is anyone interested in selling me a couple of these?
Hi Jerry,
I would be very interested in selling you a couple of pods. Why don’t you go to eatloco.com, put in some information, and I’ll get in contact with you? Don’t worry, all I need is your email address, the other stuff doesn’t really matter at this point. Thanks!
Varun Mangla