Q. What is the cost for a PetaBox GB series storage device?
A. Pricing varies depending on the density of the storage – higher density generally yields a better $/GB ratio. Current pricing is well under $1.50/GB, typically, for most of our devices, however. To get exact pricing or request a formal quote, please contact sales@capricorn-tech.com.
Q. What is the difference between a PetaBox GB series, PetaBox PS series, and Peta Box TB series storage device?
A.
PetaBox is the family name for all of our storage products. That is, the GB series, PS series and TB series are all PetaBox technology. The GB series is our flagship product of nearline storage that is an optimum choice for tape-to-disk migration, archival or fixed content storage, backup, and data delivery that is not performance-based. A standard issue GB series storage device includes 4xPATA drives, a VIA low power-consuming M-1000 mainboard, 10/100 Ethernet and support software-based RAID configurations.
The PowerStore, like the PetaBox GB series, provides raw storage capacity ranging from 1TB to 3TB in a 1U form factor. But unlike the GB series of nearline storage devices, the PowerStore has been built for performance. Equipped with SATA drives, duo-core processor, GbE, and support for hardware RAID, the PowerStore delivers access and read/write speeds up to 8X faster than the GB series.
The PetaBox GB and PS series devices are the basic building blocks of the PetaBox TB series of rack-mounted storage systems. The TB series includes a combination of GB and/or PS series devices in your preferred density along with a custom 19” rack and managed switch. When clustered in a rack, our PetaBox technology provides the highest storage density at the lowest possible cost.
Q. Where can I buy a PetaBox?
A. The PetaBox is currently available directly from Capricorn Technologies and through several channel and strategic partners. Please contact us at sales@capricorn-tech.com for direct purchase information or for a referral to one of our partners.
Q. How is a standard GB series PetaBox configured and what upgrades are available?
A. Standard PetaBoxes ship with 512MB of RAM, a 10/100 Ethernet interface, and either 1TB,
1.6TB, 2TB, or 3TB of HD capacity. You can upgrade the machines to include 1GB of RAM, a Gb
Ethernet interface, and an LCD.
Q. Which OS ships with the PetaBox?
A. PetaBoxes ship with fedora or debian linux. Other linux distributions may be available upon request.
Q. Are all of your PetaBoxes, including the full rack versions, available now?
A. All are available now, yes.
Q. Can I purchase a PetaBox on-line?
A. Soon! Watch for the release of our new e-commerce site, due to roll out in the near future.
Q. Does Capricorn Technologies offer storage solutions for smaller companies?
A. Yes. The PetaBox GB and PS series are 1U machines configured with 1, 1.6, 2, or 3 TB of HD capacity. These can be purchased as single storage devices, and can also be the building blocks for a racked datastore as your requirement increases. That is, you can start with a single GB3000 with 3TB of raw storage capacity and then add terabytes through purchases of additional GB or PS series machines that can be racked and accessed together.
Q. Do you have volume discount pricing for the PetaBox?
A. Yes. When you buy any of our fully configured TB40, TB64, TB80 or TB120 racks, volume pricing is reflected in the purchase. If you would like to purchase 5 or more PetaBoxes on a single order, volume pricing is also available.
A. Warranty support is provided through Source Support, Inc., an outsource support organization that provides helpdesk and on-site services for one and three years for a small percentage of the system cost.
Q. Is it possible to purchase and use a GB3000, GB2000, or GB1000 for tape-like
replacement storage devices?
A. Yes. The price-performance of our technology makes this more than a viable option. The
random-access nature of hard drives also provides much lower latencies than tape-based
storage.
Q. How does the PetaBox present its data to the network?
A. Since the individual PetaBox nodes are running linux, the full representation of linux tools is available for use with them. For example, the machines may use NFS, FTP, HTTP, or samba to present the data.
Q. Which filesystems are supported by the PetaBox?
A. Our machines run full-featured implementations of linux, and support the usual set of linux filesystems. In particular, we have quite a bit of experience with ext3 and reiserfs. We are also in the process of investigating new, affordable, commercial filesystem candidates from various vendors that we will make available through strategic partnerships in the near future.
Q. Redundancy and fault-tolerance are my main concerns. Which RAID level do you
recommend if I want true data redundancy with your box?
A. One way to mirror the data is at the disk level, for example mirroring disk A on disk C, and B on
D. Alternatively, you could mirror the data at the machine level, i.e. all four disks in machine 2
mirror all four disks in machine 1. The latter solution offers the advantages of resilience to power
supply or motherboard failures. If mirroring at the machine level, you can use a routine called
rsync to keep the data synchronized. For more information on rsync, please see:
RAID5, while arguably an adequate option for redundancy in smaller data sets, becomes riskier
as the size of the store increases. RAID 5 will tolerate a single failure. However, if a second
failure occurs while the data recovery process is in progress, the entire array will be corrupt. In
very large data centers with thousands of disks, the likelihood of compound failures becomes
unacceptably high.
Q. I am interested in purchasing a 10TB solution. Can you please tell me how this would
be accomplished with the PetaBox?
A. Capricorn can provide 10TB in a number of configurations. For instance, you can purchase:
5 x GB2000 (2 TB modules)
2 x GB2000 (2 TB modules) and 2 X GB3000 (3 TB modules)
4 x GB3000 (3 TB modules)
Though the third option is more than your stated storage requirement, it is the most cost-
performing solution.
Q. How are volumes restricted or delegated to network users with the PetaBox?
A. Volumes within a node can be configured using Logical Volume Manager (LVM). For more
information on LVM, please see:
Volumes can be virtualized across the entire rack with available software. We are working with several strategic partners to bring these products to the market near term. For an answer for fixed content storage today, check out Caringo (www.caringo.com).
Q. We don't have racks yet, but we are planning to use generic 19-inch racks to
house our servers. Are there any special racking requirements for the TB120?
A. The TB120 includes a rack. It comes with power distribution, cable management, and Ethernet aggregation fully assembled. Individual purchases of the PetaBox are optimized to work best in our racks, but can be used in generic 19-inch racks with readily available, off-the-shelf accessories.
Q. What are the advantages of low power consumption?
A. Low power consumption introduces a number of advantages, including savings on wiring
infrastructure, reduced utility bills, lower air coimproved uptime and reduced maintenance.
Q. Do I understand the GB3000 correctly in that it houses 4 ATA disk drives at 750GB
each? Is the size of the hard drive the only difference between the individual GB units; i.e.,
250GB, 500GB, and now 750GB?
A. You are correct in your understanding of all of this.
Q. Are disk drives within each GB unit hot swappable? Are GB units themselves hot
swappable within a rack?
A. The drives are not hot-swappable. We considered this when designing the boxes, but found
that hot-swapping created another point of failure that we did not wish to introduce. However, the
drives must still be easy to remove. So we opted for a ready-release scheme that provides an
easy latching mechanism for the drives, allowing them to be popped out and replaced as needed.
The GB units are linux machines, and will of course power down if removed from the rack. The
other machines in the rack remain unaffected by this. When housed in our racks as part of a TB
system, the simple, hand-free backside support makes it trivial to remove and install nodes.
Q. What happens when a disk drive fails? Can I replace it with a new one at my site? Are spare parts kits available?
A.
Your hardware warranty does not permit opening the lid on the PetaBox without voiding the warranty. Capricorn has contracted with Source Support Services to provide helpdesk and on-site support on a next-or same-business-day basis for a small percentage of the price of each system. For more information on the warranty services provided, please visit our support pages.
Spare parts kits are available and are a recommended addition to a multiple PetaBox unit purchase. However, unless specifically authorized by Capricorn in writing, an enduser cannot open the cover of a PetaBox without voiding the warranty. Spare parts kits are provided for your convenience when a service call is required, for specific use by the Source Support technician called on-site to repair your PetaBox.
Q. How do I recognize when a hard disk has failed? Does the PetaBox provide some sort of notification?
A.
The LCD display will report on file volume failures, which are often associated with drives.
Q. Can I use samba to interface my PetaBoxes with my Windows environment?
A.
The following are steps delineated by one of our customers (Thank you, Luke Butterworth from Mission Hospitals!) for installing and running samba on the PetaBox:
Remove the fedora core installation that comes with the PetaBox if you want to use RAID.
Reinstall fedora core 4 and set up the RAID groups you want during installation.
Once Step 2 is completed, samba should also be installed by default.
If your users are in an Active Directory domain and you want them to be able to authenticate against the samba box without a separate login, you should install Winbind.
Once Winbind is configured, create the shares in the smb.conf file, and give the appropriate groups their permissions. (Getting the file and share permissions to work just right in an AD environment can be a bit tricky, but anyone who has installed samba in an AD knows this).
To ease management (for instance, so that Windows admins have a friendlier management interface) install webmin.
Configure logwatch to send reports on diskspace usage etc, and then setup the LCD on the PetaBox to display performance
metrics.
That’s about it. samba works well on the PetaBox – as well as it does on any box I have used. All of the steps taken to get it running are readily available in various documents on the internet.
