Backblaze, a Silicon Valley startup that provides unlimited online file storage for $5 a month (USD), is offering the cost-effective methodology they developed for their storage pods on their website for free on their company’s blog entitled “Petabytes On A Budget: How To Build Cheap Cloud Storage“.
After searching for a cheap way to store customer data, they created a custom 67 terabyte storage pod for a meager $7,867.
Since Backblaze specializes in providing a quality backup experience, they wanted to share the technology with the public and hopefully inspire others to improve upon it. The post contains step-by-step instructions on how to make one of your own pods, as well as a short video that showcases a 3D model version of the pod.
[via VentureBeat]
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Open-source electronics is most likely going to be the template for hardware in coming years. Arduino ( http://www.arduino.cc/ ) seems to have started this trend in which they provide a copyleft license to use their single-board microcontroller blueprints to create for profit products. Backblaze is on the same track by making the design of their storage pods available to the public instead of just gouging for cloud storage space.
September 2nd, 2009 at 9:56 am