I'm potentially interested in renting a dedicated server or a VPS with dedicated storage, where I can purchase the hard drives and have them shipped to me from the DC with my data on them. Payment up front with a reasonable setup fee is fine. Is anyone in a position to offer something like that?
VPS or dedi where I own the hard drives
- Thread starter willie
- Start date
drmike
100% Tier-1 Gogent
Planning on doing sends back and forth of physical drives?
Yeah facilities will do this for you. Will pay a monthly fee or whatever when you need drives in/out.
Now the big problem is finding a facility that handles your own drives in leased/rented servers and has hot sled support.
I'd try Quickpacket and Dacentec. Both allow your own drives in their servers.
Yeah facilities will do this for you. Will pay a monthly fee or whatever when you need drives in/out.
Now the big problem is finding a facility that handles your own drives in leased/rented servers and has hot sled support.
I'd try Quickpacket and Dacentec. Both allow your own drives in their servers.
I don't really care about 2-way or hot sleds. I'm ok with just buying drives from the host and having them sent to me one way, if that makes things simpler. I saw something about some DC's allowing sending drives in, but then you can't get them out again. Getting drives sent from rented servers doesn't seem so easy. With colo it's probably a routine remote hands operation, but that means dealing with more gear. I may end up going that route, or trying to find some affordable local colo where I am.
I ship my drives to WANSecurity and they manage them for free under the condition that they keep them when I'm done with them. It's cheaper for me and the drives were all on sale at Newegg so I'm not out any money if I keep the server with them for 6 months.
BUT...
Here's one of the key things I like about their BYOD (Bring Your Own Disks) program:
Failed Disks conforming to the DCL (Disk Certification List) are replaced at the cost of WANSEC
That means if one of the drives I sent them (assuming it conforms to their DCL) fails, they will replace it for me with one of their own.
Here's the DCL for those wondering:
Disk certification requirements list
? Hitachi, WD Caviar Black, Seagate Barracuda
? 32MB Cache, or 64MB Cache
? 7200 RPM
? Disks must be SATA and not PATA
? Disk must be in the 3.5" form factor
? Low power, low RPM TDLR RAID enabled can be substituted for these other requirements
BUT...
Here's one of the key things I like about their BYOD (Bring Your Own Disks) program:
Failed Disks conforming to the DCL (Disk Certification List) are replaced at the cost of WANSEC
That means if one of the drives I sent them (assuming it conforms to their DCL) fails, they will replace it for me with one of their own.
Here's the DCL for those wondering:
Disk certification requirements list
? Hitachi, WD Caviar Black, Seagate Barracuda
? 32MB Cache, or 64MB Cache
? 7200 RPM
? Disks must be SATA and not PATA
? Disk must be in the 3.5" form factor
? Low power, low RPM TDLR RAID enabled can be substituted for these other requirements
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texteditor
Premium Buffalo-based Hosting
I find this kind of surprising, since all their lease to own servers offer HDD upgrades for like $30/m per 2tb. Sending your own would save you those costs in like 3 months
Sounds like a ballsy policy for them to have, unless they also only cover you while under the manufacturer's warranty (and just do your RMAs for you)
It'll have to be a dedicated server since the VPS is shared. No problem offering something like that, but won't be that cheap. You'll be paying the cost of the drive and remote hands fee, shipping fee etc.
We should be able to do this on a Dedicated Server, just contact us at [email protected].
If not, we can give you a sweet deal
If not, we can give you a sweet deal
pcan
New Member
As concerto49 said, it won't be cheap. I have something like this in place, shipping disks/tapes back and forth quarterly for a remote disaster recovery backup procedure, and I am still looking for a cheaper solution.
Backblaze does something like that (they can ship a USB drive with your data), but price is still somewhat high ($189 per drive, on top of the standard subscription) and data need to be transferred to Backblaze servers (something I don't want to do).
Amazon AWS Import/Export service is cheaper ($80 per drive plus shipping fees), but I rather avoid Amazon AWS services.
I had high hopes about low-cost Raspberry Pi colocation services, because a Raspberry plus Usb drive or high capacity stick will be cheap to ship and handle, but they never materialized. As proof of concept, I have some Rapsberry Pi's in a server rack for quite some time now; I had many doubt about stability of this consumer-grade hardware, but they work flawlessly (with a high quality power supply).
Backblaze does something like that (they can ship a USB drive with your data), but price is still somewhat high ($189 per drive, on top of the standard subscription) and data need to be transferred to Backblaze servers (something I don't want to do).
Amazon AWS Import/Export service is cheaper ($80 per drive plus shipping fees), but I rather avoid Amazon AWS services.
I had high hopes about low-cost Raspberry Pi colocation services, because a Raspberry plus Usb drive or high capacity stick will be cheap to ship and handle, but they never materialized. As proof of concept, I have some Rapsberry Pi's in a server rack for quite some time now; I had many doubt about stability of this consumer-grade hardware, but they work flawlessly (with a high quality power supply).
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Folks, thanks. Shovenose, I may get in contact. Do you have physical presence in a DC, or would you be using the DC's remote hands?
Pcan, yeah, $80/drive is more than I was really hoping to pay, but it's within reason. I'd say $189/drive is high enough that I'd look for alternatives. USB flash drives aren't that helpful as their capacity is within reach of home internet transfer. At $80/drive shipped, I'd want to use 4TB drives if possible.
I think in principle this could be done with a VPS (it would be communicating with an external storage box), but I don't mind using a dedi if the configuration and price is right.
Colocation with decent internet transit in my area is unfortunately quite expensive, and shipping whole servers around to less expensive sites seems like even more hassle than shipping hard drives around. Plus either way, there is the need to buy the server. But I will continue to look into this.
Pcan, yeah, $80/drive is more than I was really hoping to pay, but it's within reason. I'd say $189/drive is high enough that I'd look for alternatives. USB flash drives aren't that helpful as their capacity is within reach of home internet transfer. At $80/drive shipped, I'd want to use 4TB drives if possible.
I think in principle this could be done with a VPS (it would be communicating with an external storage box), but I don't mind using a dedi if the configuration and price is right.
Colocation with decent internet transit in my area is unfortunately quite expensive, and shipping whole servers around to less expensive sites seems like even more hassle than shipping hard drives around. Plus either way, there is the need to buy the server. But I will continue to look into this.
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We can easily do it too. We have racks in Texas and LA. A drive, unless you're referring to 1G consumer drive would be more than $80/drive. We're waiting on some E3 V3 (Haswell) stock, so can offer pre-order pricing.
http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=HD-ST1TAS3 - this is already $68. There are slightly cheaper drives, but point being it won't be dirt cheap.
http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=HD-ST1TAS3 - this is already $68. There are slightly cheaper drives, but point being it won't be dirt cheap.
Hi, we resell our dedicated servers but I have contacted the company and they would have no problem with you sending drives then sending them back as long as you paid return shipping.
Concerto49, thanks, the $80 refers to what AWS charges to ship a drive or install one that you ship to them. It doesn't include purchasing the drive . I saw newegg had 4TB drives for $150 a few days ago (they go on sale once a month or so) so I'd want to use those rather than 1TB drives if possible. Shovenose, thanks also for this info.
. I saw newegg had 4TB drives for $150 a few days ago (they go on sale once a month or so) so I'd want to use those rather than 1TB drives if possible. Shovenose, thanks also for this info.
drmike
100% Tier-1 Gogent
The process here for OP's success will be to find a provider for dedicated that:
1. Has hot sleds (they won't go digging inside a server to extract a drive).
2. Provides on site hardware that OP will buy at fall facility rate.
3. Ideally is staffed by the seller and not a reseller using remote hands.
I've done this bidirectionally and another provider on here has experience in the past doing this for a weirdo customer.
Expect to pay 1 hour hands on time minimum each time, no bickering. Might be 2 all depending and hot swap with OS/config that supports such will save $$$ long term, unless this is bi-annual or less extract and ship.
1. Has hot sleds (they won't go digging inside a server to extract a drive).
2. Provides on site hardware that OP will buy at fall facility rate.
3. Ideally is staffed by the seller and not a reseller using remote hands.
I've done this bidirectionally and another provider on here has experience in the past doing this for a weirdo customer.
Expect to pay 1 hour hands on time minimum each time, no bickering. Might be 2 all depending and hot swap with OS/config that supports such will save $$$ long term, unless this is bi-annual or less extract and ship.
I guess it's sufficient to just have a portable USB hard drive plugged into the server, that I could access from a VPS or dedi, and that the host is willing/able to unplug and ship to me if I pay for some remote hands time. No need for sleds, and the drive could be USB powered so it wouldn't need an AC drop. Don't need RAID or serious computational capability since I can back up the data and crunch it on other servers. Yes it would be infrequent, 1x or 2x a year maybe, though perhaps with multiple drives. Buffalooed's comments are generally well taken.
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drmike
100% Tier-1 Gogent
I suppose this is possible too. Know I've had USB DVD/CD tethered on re-installs temporarily by hands on folks.
Depends on the rack setup and space though. If they have you high rised with no spacing could be a problem. Facilities tend to be real weary about anything outside of a rackmount with ability to dangle/fall. Possibly would need to roll a cart over to rack and put drive on that and cable things. Would be short term < 24 hours tolerated I guess.
USB3 self powered could work and be tolerable. Recommend hardened cases that are drop and water proof. Shipping and drives goes wrong too often.
USB would be far easier from an OS management layer with no sleds and hot swap software issues.
Let us know how your shopping for providers goes and if you find someone that will handle this. Certainly are others here that have same need.
Anything works. Just showing you minimum cost. CD/DVD is less likely. Hard to store. A lot of DCs have no storage room for colo customers and you have to put it on the rack. USB HDD would work or if there's spare HDD hot swap slot can just slot it in and out.Concerto49, thanks, the $80 refers to what AWS charges to ship a drive or install one that you ship to them. It doesn't include purchasing the drive
We (QuickPacket) will do this, provided you forfeit ownership of the drive when you're done using it.
Alternatively, if you want to pay a one-time fee instead of a monthly fee for a hard drive, we have options available (for instance, in Atlanta, we can do a 1 TB hard drive for $89.99 one-time fee, instead of $15 per month).
Alternatively, if you want to pay a one-time fee instead of a monthly fee for a hard drive, we have options available (for instance, in Atlanta, we can do a 1 TB hard drive for $89.99 one-time fee, instead of $15 per month).