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Ideas To Repurpose 35Pb Storage

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By Usman Masood Ashraf
views 7 min read
Ideas To Repurpose 35Pb Storage

Ideas To Repurpose 35PB Storage: A DevOps Guide to Enterprise Storage Economics

1. INTRODUCTION

The challenge of transforming a massive 35PB storage array from a cost center to a profit engine represents one of the most compelling infrastructure puzzles in modern DevOps. When faced with enterprise-grade hardware like 100x14TB and 100x12TB Seagate SAS drives in JBOD configurations - capable of storing the equivalent of 700,000 hours of 4K video or 35 billion PDF documents - traditional storage management approaches no longer apply.

For DevOps engineers and storage administrators, this scenario raises critical questions: How do you extract value from petabytes of spinning disks in an era of cloud dominance? What architectural patterns enable profitable storage repurposing? How do operational costs influence storage business models?

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore:

  • Technical frameworks for monetizing massive storage arrays
  • Open-source storage solutions optimized for multi-petabyte environments
  • Cost/benefit analysis of different storage business models
  • Practical implementations using enterprise-grade hardware
  • Security and scaling considerations at petabyte scale

By examining real-world use cases through a DevOps lens, we’ll transform this 3.5PB system (with potential expansion to 35PB) from a $500/month liability into a revenue-generating asset.

Keywords: petabyte storage management, storage monetization, JBOD repurposing, self-hosted cloud storage, DevOps storage solutions, enterprise storage optimization

2. UNDERSTANDING THE TOPIC

2.1 The Modern Storage Economics Challenge

The Seagate ST14000NM0048 and ST12000NM0027 SAS drives represent enterprise-grade 7200RPM hardware designed for data center environments. When configured in JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks) arrays, these systems provide raw storage capacity at approximately $5/TB - dramatically lower than cloud storage costs, but with significant operational overhead.

Key Specifications:

ParameterST14000NM0048 (14TB)ST12000NM0027 (12TB)
InterfaceSAS 12Gb/sSAS 12Gb/s
Form Factor3.5”3.5”
RPM72007200
Average Latency4.16ms4.16ms
MTBF2.5M hours2.5M hours
Workload Rate550TB/year550TB/year

2.2 Storage Business Model Analysis

At $500/month operational costs, the break-even analysis reveals:

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Monthly cost per TB = $500 / 3500TB = $0.142/TB

Comparing to major cloud providers:

ProviderStandard Storage (per GB/month)
AWS S3$0.023 ($23/TB)
Google Cloud$0.020 ($20/TB)
Backblaze B2$0.005 ($5/TB)
Our System$0.000142 ($0.142/TB)

This 99.4% cost advantage enables disruptive pricing models, but requires solving four key challenges:

  1. Reliability: Enterprise SAS drives have 2.5M hour MTBF - expect ~1 failure/month at scale
  2. Bandwidth: 200 drives @ 250MB/s = 50GB/s theoretical throughput
  3. Management: Petabyte-scale filesystem complexity
  4. Monetization: Payment infrastructure and SLA management

2.3 Technical Approaches to Storage Repurposing

Option 1: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)

  • Sell raw storage capacity with S3-compatible APIs
  • Use cases: Backup targets, scientific data repositories
  • Tech stack: MinIO, Ceph RADOS Gateway

Option 2: Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)

  • Offer managed storage services (versioning, lifecycle management)
  • Use cases: Media asset management, regulatory archives
  • Tech stack: Zenko CloudServer, SwiftStack

Option 3: Blockchain-Based Storage

  • Participate in decentralized storage networks
  • Use cases: NFT storage, Web3 applications
  • Tech stack: Filecoin, Storj

Option 4: Specialized Archival Services

  • Niche solutions for specific industries
  • Use cases: Medical imaging archives, surveillance footage
  • Tech stack: OpenIO, Scality RING

3. PREREQUISITES

3.1 Hardware Requirements

The existing system provides:

  • 100x 14TB SAS drives (1.4PB raw)
  • 100x 12TB SAS drives (1.2PB raw)
  • JBOD enclosures (assumed 60-bay units)
  • Server infrastructure (exact specs unknown)

Recommended Upgrades:

  1. Controllers: LSI 9400-16i SAS controllers (supports 1024 devices)
  2. Networking: Dual 100GbE NICs per storage node
  3. Cache: 2TB NVMe read cache per 60 drives
  4. RAM: 1GB per TB of storage (minimum)

3.2 Software Requirements

Core Storage OS Options:

SoftwareVersionPetabyte Features
TrueNAS SCALE22.12ZFS replication, S3 gateway
Proxmox VE7.4Ceph integration, ZFS support
Ubuntu Server22.04 LTSZFS/LVM/Ceph packages
CentOS Stream9Advanced storage tools

Dependency Matrix:

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common_dependencies:
  - zfs-2.1.11
  - ceph-quincy (17.2.6)
  - minio-2023-08-16
  - samba-4.17.4
  - docker-ce-23.0
  - nginx-1.23.3

3.3 Security Preconfiguration

  1. Network Segmentation:
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    # Create isolated storage VLAN
vlan create -i eno1 -v 100 -n storage_net
  2. Access Controls:
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    # ZFS delegated permissions
zfs allow -u storageuser create,destroy,mount,snapshot tank/data
  3. Firewall Rules:
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    # Allow S3 traffic only from gateway
ufw allow proto tcp from 10.0.100.0/24 to any port 9000

3.4 Pre-Installation Checklist

  1. Drive burn-in procedure (72-hour badblocks test):
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    badblocks -b 4096 -c 65536 -wsv /dev/sdX
  2. SMART extended self-test:
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    smartctl -t long /dev/sdX
  3. SAS topology validation:
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    sas2ircu 0 display
  4. Firmware updates:
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    storcli /c0 download file=JBOD_FW.zip

4. INSTALLATION & SETUP

4.1 ZFS Storage Pool Configuration

Optimal Pool Layout for Mixed Drives:

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# Create 14TB drive pools
zpool create tank-14t raidz2 sda sdb sdc sdd sde sdf \
                  raidz2 sdg sdh sdi sdj sdk sdl \
                  ... (16 vdevs total)

# Create 12TB drive pools
zpool create tank-12t raidz2 sdm sdn sdo sdp sdq sdr \
                  ... (16 vdevs total)

# Combine into single namespace
zfs create -o mountpoint=/storage tank/all
zfs create tank/all/14t
zfs create tank/all/12t

Tuning Parameters:

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# Optimize for sequential access
zfs set recordsize=1M tank/all
zfs set compression=lz4 tank/all
zfs set atime=off tank/all
zfs set logbias=throughput tank/all

# SSD caching
zpool add tank-14t cache nvme0n1
zpool add tank-12t cache nvme1n1

4.2 MinIO S3 Gateway Deployment

Distributed MinIO Configuration:

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# 4-node cluster with 24 drives each
MINIO_ROOT_USER=admin MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD=securepassword123 \
minio server http://node{1...4}/mnt/disk{1...24}

systemd Service Unit:

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[Unit]
Description=MinIO
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=minio
Environment="MINIO_ROOT_USER=admin"
Environment="MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD=securepassword123"
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/minio server http://node{1...4}/mnt/disk{1...24}

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

4.3 Ceph Cluster Deployment

Cephadm Bootstrap:

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cephadm bootstrap \
  --mon-ip 10.0.100.2 \
  --initial-dashboard-user admin \
  --initial-dashboard-password adminpassword \
  --allow-fqdn-hostname

OSD Configuration:

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service_type: osd
service_id: default_drive_group
placement:
  hosts:
  - node1
  - node2
  - node3
  - node4
data_devices:
  all: true

4.4 Verification Procedures

ZFS Health Check:

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zpool status -v
zpool iostat -v 1 10
zfs get all tank/all

MinIO Connectivity Test:

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mc alias set local http://node1:9000 admin securepassword123
mc mb local/verification-bucket
mc cp 10GBfile local/verification-bucket

Ceph Validation:

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ceph -s
ceph osd tree
ceph osd pool create verify 128 128
rados bench -p verify 10 write --no-cleanup

5. CONFIGURATION & OPTIMIZATION

5.1 Performance Tuning

ZFS ARC Size Adjustment:

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# Set ARC to 75% of system memory
echo "options zfs zfs_arc_max=12884901888" > /etc/modprobe.d/zfs.conf

Ceph OSD Optimization:

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osd_memory_target: 4294967296  # 4GB per OSD
osd_op_num_threads_per_shard: 4
bluestore_rocksdb_options: compression=kNoCompression

Network Tuning for 100GbE:

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# Increase TCP buffers
sysctl -w net.core.rmem_max=134217728
sysctl -w net.core.wmem_max=134217728
sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_rmem="4096 87380 67108864"
sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_wmem="4096 65536 67108864"

5.2 Security Hardening

Object Storage ACLs:

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# MinIO policy example
cat > backup-policy.json <<EOF
{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": ["s3:GetObject"],
      "Resource": ["arn:aws:s3:::customer-bucket/*"]
    }
  ]
}
EOF
mc admin policy add local backup-policy backup-policy.json

Ceph RGW Security:

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# Enable SSL termination
ceph config set client.rgw rgw_frontends "beast port=443 ssl_certificate=/etc/ceph/ssl/cert.pem ssl_private_key=/etc/ceph/ssl/key.key"

5.3 Cost-Optimized Operations

Power Management Script:

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#!/usr/bin/env python3
import subprocess
import time

def spin_down_idle():
    """Spin down drives after 30 minutes idle"""
    drives = subprocess.check_output("lsblk -do name | grep sd", shell=True).split()
    for drive in drives:
        hdparm -S 241 /dev/${drive}  # 30 minute timeout

if __name__ == "__main__":
    while True:
        spin_down_idle()
        time.sleep(1800)  # Check every 30 minutes

Temperature-Based Fan Control:

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# ipmitool fan control
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x30 0x01 0x00
for temp in {50,55,60,65}; do
  ipmitool raw 0x30 0x30 0x02 0xff 0x$(printf '%x' $((temp*2)))
done

6. USAGE & OPERATIONS

6.1 Daily Management Tasks

ZFS Maintenance Routine:

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# Daily scrub rotation
zpool scrub tank-14t
zpool scrub tank-12t

# Weekly snapshot cleanup
zfs list -t snapshot -o name | grep -E 'tank/all.*weekly' | xargs -n1 zfs destroy

Ceph Cluster Monitoring:

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# Check cluster health
ceph -s

# OSD reweight based on utilization
ceph osd
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