Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?
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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:
If you want over 50TB, you need to call for a quote. If we are working with less than 25GB we can just assume that free explains our reasoning and move on
Let's talk about something more reasonable for a typical SMB. Maybe 5TB. Obviously AetherStore has a sweet spot at 1TB that might make it seem really beneficial so we'll avoid that to show how it works at a more challenging size to price ratio.AetherStore uses excess disk capacity in your organization, probably on desktops. 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.
At 5TB, the AetherStore cost is $240 / year. With this you get as much data duplication as you want. If you want four copies of your data on the network, it will be spread out to the disks in four different machines giving you the rough equivalent of network RAID 1 with quad-mirrors. But unlike normal RAID that only makes the disks redundant, AetherStore makes the nodes redundant. And it flexibly moves the data redundancy around, as it is RAIN, not actually RAID. So very flexible. If a single node is lost, remaining data can be shuffled around to retain data protection and durability unlike RAID which needs to await a replacement drive.
Now let's compare a small NAS for our office. The Synology DS216 is $250. This has no disks, so we will need to buy those. Assuming that we are okay with the 5400 RPM speeds of a WD Red drive, that is $234 for a 6TB model. We will need two of those, of course, for RAID 1. And we need 6TB, rather than 5TB, because we would be cutting it way too close, otherwise. We need 5TB usable, which 5TB drives won't quite deliver and one more file and we'd be out of luck. As it is it would only take about 15% growth to force us to buy bigger, more expensive drives in a lift and shift, so this is not a lot of head room.
That takes our NAS cost to an up front of $718. That's almost three years of AetherStore pricing right there, probably more if the time value of money is considered. But we aren't done yet, we need to look at node redundancy. That's a single NAS vs. data spread out to several nodes on AetherStore. To provide the same category of storage we need two NAS devices that sync to each other. It's still not on part with the AetherStore approach for reliability, but would be similar if AetherStore was set to the default of quad copies of the data. This raises our NAS up front cost to $1,436. That's six years of AetherStore pricing, all up front. So the AetherStore approach is definitely winning in the time value of money at this point.
Now we still have to think about backups. Of course, this could be something very simple. Let's give the benefit of the doubt and use a single USB External Hard Drive to back up our NAS devices once a day. Because backups use more space than the original data, we need at least an 8TB USB drive to handle this which is about $210 for a rather pathetic backup system. But at $20/mo our AetherStore account gives us unlimited data stores, so a separate group of desktops could be selected and used as a backup target for the other group. So with AetherStore, potentially our backup is free and protected with RAIN and much more scalable.
So it is easy to see how a 5TB SMB scenario could find that a product like AetherStore might fundamentally change how we spend our money on storage. If our data growth was greater than 15% over seven years, AetherStore would have even more advantage as there would be no additional cost until you hit 50TB. Run these same numbers with 8TB, 10TB or 20TB scenarios and very quickly the cost of larger disks, more disks, larger NAS units and so forth add up very quickly whereas the cost of AetherStore remains flat. Lower risk, greater flexibility.
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My problem is that we don't have large drives anymore... Everyone is on a small SSD.
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@aaronstuder said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
My problem is that we have large drives anymore... Everyone is on a small SSD.
How small and how many people? SSDs are getting larger very quickly. Even my laptop has 120GB spare on its SSD. Plus it has 1TB of Winchester capacity as well.
With AetherStore you only need each user to give a little if you have enough users. 50GB here, 100GB there... it adds up.
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@scottalanmiller Normally a 128GB SSD drive.
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@aaronstuder said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller Normally a 128GB SSD drive.
So you'd need 40 SSD's at 128GB free space for 5TB usable storage. Which means you either need more SSD's in your organization, or to get larger capacity SSD's.
Which approach would be better depends on if SSD prices take a dive, or your business grows and gets more equipment to add to the store.
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@DustinB3403 said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@aaronstuder said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller Normally a 128GB SSD drive.
So you'd need 40 SSD's at 128GB free space for 5TB usable storage. Which means you either need more SSD's in your organization, or to get larger capacity SSD's.
Which approach would be better depends on if SSD prices take a dive, or your business grows and gets more equipment to add to the store.
Personally, I think the 240/256GB SSD is the sweet spot as of this posting. For bang to buck, it's the best value I see. Most Windows installs are 20-40GB, which leaves us close to 200GB for programs, apps, and data. Most users will use a small fraction of that, and the price difference between a 128GB and a 256GB is usually quite small, so in the future, I'd probably say 240/250/256GB SSDs are the way to go.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
to awake a replacement drive.
Low let's cawait and Now
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@JaredBusch said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
to awake a replacement drive.
Low let's cawait and Now
Also, "It's still not on part with the AetherStore approach for reliability" should be "on par".
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@DustinB3403 said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@aaronstuder said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller Normally a 128GB SSD drive.
So you'd need 40 SSD's at 128GB free space for 5TB usable storage. Which means you either need more SSD's in your organization, or to get larger capacity SSD's.
Which approach would be better depends on if SSD prices take a dive, or your business grows and gets more equipment to add to the store.
This only gets you one copy of data, not two or four as listed in Scott's example. For Scott's example, he'd need 160 machines with that amount of storage.
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@thanksajdotcom said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@DustinB3403 said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@aaronstuder said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller Normally a 128GB SSD drive.
So you'd need 40 SSD's at 128GB free space for 5TB usable storage. Which means you either need more SSD's in your organization, or to get larger capacity SSD's.
Which approach would be better depends on if SSD prices take a dive, or your business grows and gets more equipment to add to the store.
Personally, I think the 240/256GB SSD is the sweet spot as of this posting. For bang to buck, it's the best value I see. Most Windows installs are 20-40GB, which leaves us close to 200GB for programs, apps, and data. Most users will use a small fraction of that, and the price difference between a 128GB and a 256GB is usually quite small, so in the future, I'd probably say 240/250/256GB SSDs are the way to go.
Perfect example of this:
256GB SAMSUNG 850 PRO
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16820147360
vs
128GB SAMSUNG PRO
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16820147359In this case, the 256GB is actually CHEAPER!
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@DustinB3403 said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@aaronstuder said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller Normally a 128GB SSD drive.
So you'd need 40 SSD's at 128GB free space for 5TB usable storage. Which means you either need more SSD's in your organization, or to get larger capacity SSD's.
Which approach would be better depends on if SSD prices take a dive, or your business grows and gets more equipment to add to the store.
This only gets you one copy of data, not two or four as listed in Scott's example. For Scott's example, he'd need 160 machines with that amount of storage.
I was descriptive enough for that to be clear, wasn't I?
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@DustinB3403 said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@aaronstuder said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller Normally a 128GB SSD drive.
So you'd need 40 SSD's at 128GB free space for 5TB usable storage. Which means you either need more SSD's in your organization, or to get larger capacity SSD's.
Which approach would be better depends on if SSD prices take a dive, or your business grows and gets more equipment to add to the store.
This only gets you one copy of data, not two or four as listed in Scott's example. For Scott's example, he'd need 160 machines with that amount of storage.
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@DustinB3403 said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@aaronstuder said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller Normally a 128GB SSD drive.
So you'd need 40 SSD's at 128GB free space for 5TB usable storage. Which means you either need more SSD's in your organization, or to get larger capacity SSD's.
Which approach would be better depends on if SSD prices take a dive, or your business grows and gets more equipment to add to the store.
This only gets you one copy of data, not two or four as listed in Scott's example. For Scott's example, he'd need 160 machines with that amount of storage.
I just have a hard time believing that EVERY machine in the company is on an SSD as it's ONLY drive. Even if you upgraded to SSDs, I'd assume your machines didn't ship that way, which means you should have spinning drives in them. Format them and just use them as data drives. Most ship with a minimum 500GB and it's still common to have 1TB drives in the machines. There's storage there too.
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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?
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@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.
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Now the question is, what's the performance like?
I never received any information about testing out the new version, so I have no idea.
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@DustinB3403 said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@DustinB3403 said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@aaronstuder said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller Normally a 128GB SSD drive.
So you'd need 40 SSD's at 128GB free space for 5TB usable storage. Which means you either need more SSD's in your organization, or to get larger capacity SSD's.
Which approach would be better depends on if SSD prices take a dive, or your business grows and gets more equipment to add to the store.
This only gets you one copy of data, not two or four as listed in Scott's example. For Scott's example, he'd need 160 machines with that amount of storage.
I was descriptive enough for that to be clear, wasn't I?
No - someone reading along, missing something and they think they only need 40 machines to get the same level of protection that Scott was offering in the OP. I was clarifying it.
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@thanksajdotcom said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@DustinB3403 said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@aaronstuder said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller Normally a 128GB SSD drive.
So you'd need 40 SSD's at 128GB free space for 5TB usable storage. Which means you either need more SSD's in your organization, or to get larger capacity SSD's.
Which approach would be better depends on if SSD prices take a dive, or your business grows and gets more equipment to add to the store.
This only gets you one copy of data, not two or four as listed in Scott's example. For Scott's example, he'd need 160 machines with that amount of storage.
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@DustinB3403 said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@aaronstuder said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller Normally a 128GB SSD drive.
So you'd need 40 SSD's at 128GB free space for 5TB usable storage. Which means you either need more SSD's in your organization, or to get larger capacity SSD's.
Which approach would be better depends on if SSD prices take a dive, or your business grows and gets more equipment to add to the store.
This only gets you one copy of data, not two or four as listed in Scott's example. For Scott's example, he'd need 160 machines with that amount of storage.
I just have a hard time believing that EVERY machine in the company is on an SSD as it's ONLY drive. Even if you upgraded to SSDs, I'd assume your machines didn't ship that way, which means you should have spinning drives in them. Format them and just use them as data drives. Most ship with a minimum 500GB and it's still common to have 1TB drives in the machines. There's storage there too.
Why would you assume that? I pull the drives out to reduce power consumption and cooling costs.
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@DustinB3403 said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@aaronstuder said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller Normally a 128GB SSD drive.
So you'd need 40 SSD's at 128GB free space for 5TB usable storage. Which means you either need more SSD's in your organization, or to get larger capacity SSD's.
Which approach would be better depends on if SSD prices take a dive, or your business grows and gets more equipment to add to the store.
Right. If you are short on total, you need to consider the cost of adding more. One or two large drives would go a long way without offsetting the cost too much. If you need too many, it swings.
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@thanksajdotcom said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@DustinB3403 said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@aaronstuder said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller Normally a 128GB SSD drive.
So you'd need 40 SSD's at 128GB free space for 5TB usable storage. Which means you either need more SSD's in your organization, or to get larger capacity SSD's.
Which approach would be better depends on if SSD prices take a dive, or your business grows and gets more equipment to add to the store.
This only gets you one copy of data, not two or four as listed in Scott's example. For Scott's example, he'd need 160 machines with that amount of storage.
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@DustinB3403 said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@aaronstuder said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller Normally a 128GB SSD drive.
So you'd need 40 SSD's at 128GB free space for 5TB usable storage. Which means you either need more SSD's in your organization, or to get larger capacity SSD's.
Which approach would be better depends on if SSD prices take a dive, or your business grows and gets more equipment to add to the store.
This only gets you one copy of data, not two or four as listed in Scott's example. For Scott's example, he'd need 160 machines with that amount of storage.
I just have a hard time believing that EVERY machine in the company is on an SSD as it's ONLY drive. Even if you upgraded to SSDs, I'd assume your machines didn't ship that way, which means you should have spinning drives in them. Format them and just use them as data drives. Most ship with a minimum 500GB and it's still common to have 1TB drives in the machines. There's storage there too.
Why would you assume that? I pull the drives out to reduce power consumption and cooling costs.
I never leave 2nd drives in.
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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.
Conversely, if you only need 5TB total on AetherStore, that means you only 1.5TB or so on the NAS.
