Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?
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@JaredBusch said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller you are calculating wrong.
You claim that the NAS solution cannot be only 5TB because of growth of data. This is wrong. If the raw data to be stored is 5TB, then you need more than 5TB in AetherStore as well to handle the multiple copies that provides the RAIN.
You cannot compare size to size. That is the wrong math.
If you need to protect 5TB of data, you need 20TB of free space in the AetherStore RAIN array, more or less, to get the 4 copy redundancy that a standard install provides.
The NAS only needs 5TB. Now the NAS does not have 4 copy redundancy, so you need to buy a second one at least and replicate for redundancy. The NAS does not need 4 copy redundancy because unlike desktops that go offline at random intervals, the NAS are supposed to be always online in a fixed location, so this means a 2 copy redundancy is likely sufficient.
I addressed all the parts of this, I thought. The AetherStore portion with this "So we are going to assume that for the size that you want that you have the necessary capacity in your organization, which is pretty common. If you need to buy disk drives just for AetherStore to have capacity, you will need to work out the numbers far more aggressively."
The NAS does not need four copies, but to be roughly equivalent it does. Because the NAS approach is four copies in two nodes versus four copies in four nodes. There is more protection, not less, in the AetherStore approach. The RAIN rebalancing system is far more powerful than a NAS full sync replacement one, too, and far less manual.
If you feel that the NAS approach with two copy redundancy is fine, that means that you are running two NAS devices, each with just a single drive, no RAID at all (other than a network RAID 1 at best.) That's an option, but I know of no business that would be happy taking on the pain and expense of buying NAS devices only to have to fully rebuild them with any drive issues.
It's a stretch to really even think that you'd go with a single drive (or RAID 0) even on a secondary NAS device, but assuming that this was okay it would mean triple redundancy. You could do the same with AetherStore and turn it down to triple replication as well. Four is just a starting point and it matches the minimum I've seen from any business that has put in two NAS boxes that replicate - it is assumed that you will at least have RAID 1 on each, resulting in four copies for the NAS.
I think that most companies would feel far more confident having triple mirrors on AetherStore compared to two NAS devices with one of them having no RAID at all, but a survey would be more telling.
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@JaredBusch said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@JaredBusch said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@JaredBusch said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller you are calculating wrong.
You claim that the NAS solution cannot be only 5TB because of growth of data. This is wrong. If the raw data to be stored is 5TB, then you need more than 5TB in AetherStore as well to handle the multiple copies that provides the RAIN.
You cannot compare size to size. That is the wrong math.
If you need to protect 5TB of data, you need 20TB of free space in the AetherStore RAIN array, more or less, to get the 4 copy redundancy that a standard install provides.
The NAS only needs 5TB. Now the NAS does not have 4 copy redundancy, so you need to buy a second one at least and replicate for redundancy. The NAS does not need 4 copy redundancy because unlike desktops that go offline at random intervals, the NAS are supposed to be always online in a fixed location, so this means a 2 copy redundancy is likely sufficient.
Conversely, if you only need 5TB total on AetherStore, that means you only 1.5TB or so on the NAS.
Depends how you look at it. For 5TB usable you need 20TB raw in either case. It's four copies both ways.
No, it is not 4 copies either way. I specifically called out that point in my post.
If you have examples of companies that are concerned enough about their data to require redundant NAS units but don't care if their have RAID on them, I'd be very interested to learn about them. This is quite literally the first mention of this approach being used that I've ever heard of. I truly mean I've never seen a company go so far as to buy a second NAS but be okay with skipping the RAID in it. I can see the logic that would drive someone to consider that decision, but have never seen anyone even mention considering it before. And certainly never to do both nodes with no RAID.
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Stop making f[moderated] s[moderated] up and answer the point that I raised OK with a company feels like which is what you're trying to say right now. I specifically stated the cost of getting juniors versus the cost of either store for the same set a space you were using the wrong f[moderated] math
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
After that I would have to spend a lot more on purchasing new drives than just purchasing a NAS and drives to get my 5 TB of quad'ed storage.
Would you? The base cost of the NAS units with no drives at all is $500, roughly. And the NAS units have to have a lot of new, big drives to handle the capacity.
With AetherStore, you have the monthly cost but not the $500 capex spend up front and you only need to buy drives to make up the difference between what you have currently and your 5TB plus redundancy.
So with the NAS, you need to buy 20TB of drives for 5TB usable (assuming normal RAID usage.) With AetherStore you need 20TB - Your current capacity of drives. If you have 10TB now, you need only 10TB more. If you have 18TB now, you need only 2TB more.
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@JaredBusch said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Conversely, if you only need 5TB total on AetherStore, that means you only 1.5TB or so on the NAS.
5TB Raw on AetherStore with quad redundancy is 1.25TB usable space.
If you had 1.5TB on a NAS, that would imply that you are comparing quad copy, quad node AetherStore to a single NAS unit with no RAID and no node redundancy. So not even kind of comparable.
For a single NAS to have any RAID protection on that, you are up to 2.5TB minimum. If you want a second NAS to get minimal node redundancy, you are up to 3.75TB minimum. To be on par to any degree with the AetherStore approach you need 5TB minimum with the NAS.
Both have their benefits and caveats, but overall, the reliability is roughly the same only when the redundancy is the same. The NAS has the advantage of local rebuilds with the drive replacement and the "design" to be always on. The AetherStore has the benefit of auto-rebalancing during a node loss and multi-node rebuild of a replaced failed node plus twice the nodal redundancy.
In this price range, we are talking about prosumer, non-redundant component NAS units. The uptime of these is not really different than a normal desktop. Good policies around desktop management can alone make all of the difference as to overall reliability.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
After that I would have to spend a lot more on purchasing new drives than just purchasing a NAS and drives to get my 5 TB of quad'ed storage.
Would you? The base cost of the NAS units with no drives at all is $500, roughly. And the NAS units have to have a lot of new, big drives to handle the capacity.
With AetherStore, you have the monthly cost but not the $500 capex spend up front and you only need to buy drives to make up the difference between what you have currently and your 5TB plus redundancy.
So with the NAS, you need to buy 20TB of drives for 5TB usable (assuming normal RAID usage.) With AetherStore you need 20TB - Your current capacity of drives. If you have 10TB now, you need only 10TB more. If you have 18TB now, you need only 2TB more.
I used my specific example as a way of showing it wouldnt be cost effective... I currently have 3 TB at four copies of data... So sure adding two more TB would require me deploying four 2 TB drives.. sure those are pretty cheap. I guess there could be cost savings there... Maybe.
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
After that I would have to spend a lot more on purchasing new drives than just purchasing a NAS and drives to get my 5 TB of quad'ed storage.
Would you? The base cost of the NAS units with no drives at all is $500, roughly. And the NAS units have to have a lot of new, big drives to handle the capacity.
With AetherStore, you have the monthly cost but not the $500 capex spend up front and you only need to buy drives to make up the difference between what you have currently and your 5TB plus redundancy.
So with the NAS, you need to buy 20TB of drives for 5TB usable (assuming normal RAID usage.) With AetherStore you need 20TB - Your current capacity of drives. If you have 10TB now, you need only 10TB more. If you have 18TB now, you need only 2TB more.
I used my specific example as a way of showing it wouldnt be cost effective... I currently have 3 TB at four copies of data... So sure adding two more TB would require me deploying four 2 TB drives.. sure those are pretty cheap. I guess there could be cost savings there... Maybe.
Or likely just two 4TB drives. Remember they don't have to all be equal.
But let's assume you need 4x 2TB. That's WD Red 2TB at $87 for a total of $348. That's over a thousand cheaper than the NAS solution up front. Any drives you add over the next four years would grow that potentially and the cost of adding one or two additional drives to grow in a few years would be trivial.
The breakeven point is somewhere around five years in that case. If you don't need to grow, the NAS approach might be cheaper around five years. But the AetherStore approach is far more flexible.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
After that I would have to spend a lot more on purchasing new drives than just purchasing a NAS and drives to get my 5 TB of quad'ed storage.
Would you? The base cost of the NAS units with no drives at all is $500, roughly. And the NAS units have to have a lot of new, big drives to handle the capacity.
With AetherStore, you have the monthly cost but not the $500 capex spend up front and you only need to buy drives to make up the difference between what you have currently and your 5TB plus redundancy.
So with the NAS, you need to buy 20TB of drives for 5TB usable (assuming normal RAID usage.) With AetherStore you need 20TB - Your current capacity of drives. If you have 10TB now, you need only 10TB more. If you have 18TB now, you need only 2TB more.
I used my specific example as a way of showing it wouldnt be cost effective... I currently have 3 TB at four copies of data... So sure adding two more TB would require me deploying four 2 TB drives.. sure those are pretty cheap. I guess there could be cost savings there... Maybe.
Or likely just two 4TB drives. Remember they don't have to all be equal.
But let's assume you need 4x 2TB. That's WD Red 2TB at $87 for a total of $348. That's over a thousand cheaper than the NAS solution up front. Any drives you add over the next four years would grow that potentially and the cost of adding one or two additional drives to grow in a few years would be trivial.
The breakeven point is somewhere around five years in that case. If you don't need to grow, the NAS approach might be cheaper around five years. But the AetherStore approach is far more flexible.
The reality is that my replacement machines will have even smaller Drive in the currently do with new SSD drives going in there a 256 gigs instead of 500 gig drives that are in there now
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If you look at the cost today and consider that your desktop buying habits would likely change if you had AetherStore, it is easy to see how companies might often opt for the nearly free additional 1TB spinner in every desktop and get 250GB of protected storage per desktop added to the environment. If you are planning for that design, it can add up very quickly and economically.
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
The reality is that my replacement machines will have even smaller Drive in the currently do with new SSD drives going in there a 256 gigs instead of 500 gig drives that are in there now
How long is that likely to last? That's what you are replacing with today, but SSD sizes have been going up pretty quickly. And until they go up a lot, secondary hard drives remain really common (and nearly free.)
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True, I'm curious what the extra power consumption would be on that
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
True, I'm curious what the extra power consumption would be on that
Its incredibly low. Drives are not big power draws, even spinners. We ran the numbers once for me and it was shockingly low, especially on newer drives. So low that it doesn't justify replacing drives before of it. I think SSDs save $50 in power over their lifespans or something like that. It's good, but not great. If the drives were a problematic draw, you would just buy fewer, bigger drives to fix that problem in all kinds of circumstances.
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BTW:
I have to say Aetherstore has some great staff. You can tell they really care about their product.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
So @BRRABill asked this question yesterday and I figured it was worthy of a little demonstration. First, for those that have not looked recently, here are the price numbers for AetherStore:
BTW:
What do you think most people use this product for? Storage, or backup?
If this is the official pricing, I am wondering if the 25GB lower "free" end should be higher. That basically knocks anyone doing backups out of the equation.
Granted, $10 isn't a bank breaker, either.
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@BRRABill said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
What do you think most people use this product for? Storage, or backup?
From both end users that I know and from speaking with AetherStore themselves, backup is the biggest use case for the product.
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@BRRABill said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
If this is the official pricing, I am wondering if the 25GB lower "free" end should be higher. That basically knocks anyone doing backups out of the equation.
That would be the idea. The free tier is really for testing and really basic stuff. If you want production backups, paying for support is probably a good idea.
Keep in mind that anyone doing DevOps style backups, 25GB is enormous.
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
My machines mostly still have HDDs in them. 500 GB drives. Probably 300+ GB free. If I ignore the laptops (yes I know Laptops can be part of it.. AetherStore specifically tested their coming and going as part of their tests), I have around 50 machines. Assuming only doubling of the data, that would provide me with 7.5 TB of space total.
Now the question is, what's the performance like?
I realize now that doubling of the data isn't good enough through.. As the OP mentions 4 times is really probably the lowest safety margin when using something like AetherStore. This is because of the completely unknown factor of people rebooting their own computers.
Toss in the fact that we use an application that causes the need for even more frequent rebooting, and even 4 might not be enough.
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
My machines mostly still have HDDs in them. 500 GB drives. Probably 300+ GB free. If I ignore the laptops (yes I know Laptops can be part of it.. AetherStore specifically tested their coming and going as part of their tests), I have around 50 machines. Assuming only doubling of the data, that would provide me with 7.5 TB of space total.
Now the question is, what's the performance like?
I realize now that doubling of the data isn't good enough through.. As the OP mentions 4 times is really probably the lowest safety margin when using something like AetherStore. This is because of the completely unknown factor of people rebooting their own computers.
Toss in the fact that we use an application that causes the need for even more frequent rebooting, and even 4 might not be enough.
Rebooting isn't an issue, it's resilient to that. It's prolonged downtime that is the issue. Four times is really quite sufficient in any kind of normal circumstance and less with any kind of control over the environment.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
My machines mostly still have HDDs in them. 500 GB drives. Probably 300+ GB free. If I ignore the laptops (yes I know Laptops can be part of it.. AetherStore specifically tested their coming and going as part of their tests), I have around 50 machines. Assuming only doubling of the data, that would provide me with 7.5 TB of space total.
Now the question is, what's the performance like?
A lot of the performance comes from the main access node(s), so if those have fast drives it can make a big difference, or should.
So is the proposal that the main access node have somewhere around 50% or more of the required space of the entire array so that hopefully most of the data is coming from a single point?
OK I just pulled that out of my rear.. but if not for some huge amount of cache on the main node, I'm not sure what you're driving at?
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
My machines mostly still have HDDs in them. 500 GB drives. Probably 300+ GB free. If I ignore the laptops (yes I know Laptops can be part of it.. AetherStore specifically tested their coming and going as part of their tests), I have around 50 machines. Assuming only doubling of the data, that would provide me with 7.5 TB of space total.
Now the question is, what's the performance like?
A lot of the performance comes from the main access node(s), so if those have fast drives it can make a big difference, or should.
So is the proposal that the main access node have somewhere around 50% or more of the required space of the entire array so that hopefully most of the data is coming from a single point?
If you want to treat the head node as a cache, yes, you could load it with fast storage, even give it SSD and even local RAID if you want. Depends on your goals. It's just one part of the puzzle so a question like this needs a lot of context.
