1000 Terabyte - 100 Host Array
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We're just as excited as you zherbert . In fact we have not been this excited since the late 90’s early 2000’s ( heyday of the Internet boom) :)
I don't want to give the impression that we are going into this blind. We have been in the IT industry for nearly 20 years. We have had a few successfully ventures along with a few spectacular failures. The secrete to our relative success has been to go with our gut (after Adequate due diligence).
What's that saying?
"To achieve the greatest success, you have to embrace the prospect of failure"
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This is super exciting! Can I ask what prices + utilization would you need to see to be making ROI on this? If we assume 75% utilization, what are the prices you would need to set on your hosts to turn a profit? (and are you running hosts that are designed to be cost-efficient?)
For the purposes of keeping decentralization, I would like to ask that you keep the number of hosts you control below 33% of the total number on the network. Today we have about 75 active hosts (and about 10 inactive hosts), so if you add 40 hosts, that will put you at 40/115, or about 33% total. The other 60 can be spun up as other hosts join the network. I know that you are not the only party currently considering spinning up a fleet of hosts, so if even one other group decides to spin up a bunch of hosts, you should be good to deploy
Other than that, we are excited to have you joining the network :). I think you will find they get utilized faster than previous trends would indicate, the software that we released today (v1.1.1) is a huge step up from the previous version (v1.1.0), which itself was a huge step up from its previous version (v1.0.4). A single user consuming 5 TB of data on the network is now well within reason, where just 3 months ago the software would struggle to get past 50 GB.
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@taek; this is a very good call out - I understand that SIA was founded to bring control back to the user for storage, utilizing little chunks of left over disk space all around the globe, so introducing one very large player would not be in interest of the net work from an independance and price competition POW. Is this where the proposed "proof of burn" comes into the picture or is that only to avoid actual attacks??
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Hi Taek,
We would be happy with $3.50/CAD per TB at 75% utilization (assuming we can scale into the thousands of TB )
Please keep in mind that we have low fixed operating costs and we are combining complementary resources. The host themselves will be cost-efficient (Synergy of complementary resources).
I understand your concerns in regards to decentralization. We will keep an eye on the total number of host in order stay under 33% control. We will keep you posted.
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@larsfloe The proof-of-burn is to protect against Sybil attacks, where there are 100 people but only one of them is real. This is more of a Hydra attack - there are 100 heads, but also every single one of them is real.
@theone Today that's definitely out of reach, it's about 10KS which would put you well above the average host price. But as demand increases, the average price will probably also increase. I'm not sure it will get quite that high though. I guess we will see as people start using the network more.
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Is there no way for the algorithm to determine how many hosts there are, to prevent centralization? Or automatically not to use HDs of a single host beyond a certain storage volume?
It seems strange to have to ask a host to monitor this, as other large users could just use as many HDs as they want, without checking?
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@bmlan I don't think that in the long-term this will be a problem. I envision hundreds of Hosting Providers and tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of individual hosts.
From a Hosting providers perspective this is as good as it gets.
- You don't need to have a marketing team (or be good at it)
- You don't need to have a customer service department
- You don't need to have a billing department
You have to be good at just one thing (managing and maintaining Storage servers). Up-time is probably the most important single metric you will be judged by (and by an impartial algorithm).
I am hopeful that this type of business model will start to spread. It would put an end to near-monopolies that can come into existence just by brand recognition alone.
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From a Hosting providers perspective this is as good as it gets.
- You don't need to have a marketing team (or be good at it)
- You don't need to have a customer service department
- You don't need to have a billing department
You have to be good at just one thing (managing and maintaining Storage servers). Up-time is probably the most important single metric you will be judged by (and by an impartial algorithm).
:)
This is exactly why Sia will be cheaper than Amazon. We make it very easy for people with uniquely competitive situations to compete openly, and to be judged by the strength of their infrastructure instead of by their business prowess.
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@bmlan said in 1000 Terabyte - 100 Host Array:
Is there no way for the algorithm to determine how many hosts there are, to prevent centralization? Or automatically not to use HDs of a single host beyond a certain storage volume?
It depends on how determined a provider is to hide the fact that they are running multiple hosts. If @theone for example were to do something that I considered dangerous to the network (say, deploy all 100 today and all at hyper-competitive pricing), we'd respond with a release that made sure only a few of those hosts would be used by the same person. We could take direct action to protect the network if we discovered something that we felt was dangerous.
But, if someone were to do this in a more sneaky way, we may not see it. We do monitor these things though, and we try to adjust the host-choosing algorithms to always optimize for data-safety.
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Here are a few pictures from the ongoing construction. We will have a nearly 2000 Sq Ft Server Room and roughly 500 Sq Ft of office space.
We will be starting off with 112KVA 3 Phase 600V Dry Transformer
Nearly 2000 Sq Ft Server Room
Mezzanine Workspace
Electrical work and testing began this week and will be completed by March 20th (I will post some new pics shortly).
We aren't going crazy with extras – we just need a no-frills server room. With that said we will cover all the essentials.
- Generator Backup
- UPS System
- Diverse Fiber paths
- Cooling
No Mortgage or Lease Payments... We own the property outright.
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@theone Very nice. I just wonder how much initial capital you used to setup this project?
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@tylerdurden The entire setup, including the commercial property will set us back around $475K Canadian ( under $100K budgeted for the server room).
Just to be clear.... We already own most of the equipment (routers, network switches, racks and Fiber cards). So the $100k budget really only involves preparing the server room.
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We do intend to make the build instructions open source once the designs are finalized. Everything from Routers, Switches, Rackmount Server Case and even the type of Concrete Epoxy used on the server room floor :)
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@Taek - Out of curiosity, is there a way to watch the number of active hosts? It'd be cool to see when the network is growing :)
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@ElvisRe Running
siac hostdbfrom any Sia node should do. If you want a more graphically pleasing presentation then SiaPulse.com has a global map of hosts at http://siapulse.com/page/network
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@in-cred-u-lous - Awesome, thanks!
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hey, @theone, any news?
How its going?
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Looking forward to the update and photos
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Hi,everyone!
A few minor delays will be pushing our opening date back. We are waiting for a delivery of some equipment including the transfer switch. In the meantime we are installing the overhead cable racking and finishing up the office space.
We are now hoping to have the first servers up before May 10th.
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@theone How is the progress mate? Still on schedule to launch on May 10th? Huge fan here :)
