eRacks Systems Tech Blog
Open Source Experts Since 1999
Why we Have to Say we Use Only New Components
Many of you may know this already, but:
- We build all our systems to order, and
- We only use factory fresh, new components in our new systems.
This may seem like an obvious thing to say, but it still needs to be said.
Why?
About 4-5 times a week, we get emails like the one at the end of this page –
Offering “Clean pull” components for low prices in large lots – At best, these would be considered “Refurb” components, but are really just plain used. They have a much shorter (or no) warranty period than new components – they’re also often factory seconds or grey market parts, sold sideways to dodgy suppliers so that they can build systems cheaper.
We do not use these suppliers.
So again, we always use 100% new and factory-fresh components in our new-system builds – (on occasion we sell our B-Stock systems, which are clearly marked as such, and what they are – reconditioned, etc).
Some of the additional ways it is possible to cut corners on building and assembling IT equipment, in addition to used or refurbished parts, is to use factory lot-ends, factory seconds, factory defects with a “Workaroundable” defect – this is how Dell got their start – they would buy large lots of, say, NIC cards (This was before motherboards came with them onboard!), with a known defect, and write (and pre-install) the Windows driver for it – almost always unbeknownst to the end-user, or disclaimed in fine print in the EULA that the customer is forced to accept.
In this market, with plenty of storage servers, with large numbers of 3.5″ hard disk drives, this is especially tempting for some box-builders to use components such as these – again, we do not do this, and *always* purchase new parts only, from reputable, nationally-known suppliers of components and computer parts for our servers, especially such as hard disks, etc.
We consistently see product out there in the marketplace which is built with these dodgy components, and have many times been asked by our new customers to help them bring these products up to spec with new parts, and re-test and burn-in to ensure reliability and a fighting chance at a full product lifetime.
Best,
Joe
Joseph Wolff
Founder and CTO
eRacks Open Source Systems
Here is the example email:
Clean Pull HDD offer ( Lot# ST4815) 90 days warranty Payment Bank wire only EXW- CA USA Seagate ST3120025ACE 120GB IDE 3.5" Qty 820 pcs take all deal @ 5.00 each Seagate ST3120026AS 120GB 7200RPM SATA 3.5" Qty 1700 pcs MOQ 500 pcs + @ $ 9.00 each Seagate ST3320310CS 320GB SATA 3.5" Qty 2400 pcs MOQ 1000 pcs + @ $ 13.50 each Seagate ST3320311CS 320GB SATA 3.5" Qty 1400 pcs MOQ 1000 pcs + @ $ 13.50 each WD WD2500AAVS 250GB SATA 3.5" Qty 4000 pcs MOQ 1000 pcs + @ $ 12.00 each WD WD3200AAJS 320GB SATA 3.5" Qty 4500 pcs MOQ 1000 pcs + @ $ 14.00 each WD WD2500AAVS 250GB SATA 3.5" Qty 4700 pcs MOQ 1000 pcs + @ $ 12.00 each Axxxxx Global XXX Enterprises,INC909-360-9993email: axxxx@xxxenterprises.net email: xxxenterprisesusa@gmail.com Walnut, CA 91789 USA www.enterprises.net Call/Email to us for large qty discount . AGS WTS /WTB : We carry a wide range of products. Please contact us for your other requirements........ Hard drive ( Pull/refurb/New) , CPU ( Pull/New), Laptop/Tablets ( Refurbished/New) Memory, Monitors,Keyborad , Mice ,Networking Products ,Printer, ETC
joe November 15th, 2015
Posted In: Backups, New products, servers, Storage
Tags: Archive Drives, HDD, New products
Heads-Up for Half Petabyte Cloud-Ready Storage Servers
eRacks/NAS50 Half Petabytes of Data Storage Server / Cloud Storage
We were extremely excited to announce the forthcoming release of 500 Terabyte (half Petabyte) storage space upgrade on our flagship product eRacks/NAS50 cloud data storage servers last week. The new model, to be released shortly, will incorporate 50 HGST 10 Terabyte HelioSeal™ hard drives. While the new model is not released yet, we are accepting pre-orders from customers. The current capacity, now available, of the eRacks/NAS50 is 400Terabytes in total, with currently-available 8Terabyte drives. The Azure devops security for data protection purposes as that must be a priority.
The new unit is rackmount and holds 50 removable drive bays. The 9U unit is suitable for any cloud storage application as well as NAS/Local LAN, since cloud services are really used now a days, you can learn how connecting to clouds directly can help businesses from this link. eRacks/NAS50™ is also a great solution for media libraries and other applications which require massive amounts of data storage capacity, you just have to make you are also backed up by the best data management services. Visit https://blog.couchbase.com/fuzzy-matching/ and get more information!
Our new servers are truly a remarkable Petascale solution. The HGST 10 Terabyte HelioSeal™ drives that come with eRacks/NAS50 use two technologies that greatly add to the value that this server carries with it, including other server services from sites as https://www.servermania.com/kb/articles/what-are-the-requirements-for-ubuntu-server/ for ubuntu projects.
The first is referred to as the HelioSeal™ technology. The HGST hard drives using this technology replace the air inside of the drive with helium. This would make the drive much lighter as well as allowing the disks to be much thinner. Due to the helium inside, the thinness of disks will not cause any disruptive turbulence effects. This will allow us to have more disks inside each drive which in turn means more data space. Additionally, helium drives have much lower power consumption, as much as 27%, making our NAS50 models truly a green product.
The new drives in the eRacks/NAS50 servers also make use of a technology called SMR. That is short for Shingled Magnetic Recording. This technology by itself adds another 25 to 100 percent storage capacity to HGST hard drives.
We are proud of our new eRacks/NAS50 and are ready to take pre-orders. We are prepared to customize the unit per your instructions with all Open-Source software necessary so your order will reach you completely pre-installed.
Please contact us for pre-orders or any questions you may have.
eRacks Open Source Systems
Phone: (714) 758-5423
Fax: (631) 392-9842
http://www.eRacks.com
eMail: info@eracks.com
Ron September 12th, 2015
Posted In: NAS50, New products, News, Open Source, servers, Upgrades
Tags: 500TB-class, 8TB, Archive Drives, Cloud Computing, Cloud Storage Server, HDD, HelioSeal. HGST, Hybrid Cloud, Internet, linux, NAS50, Open Source, Private Cloud, Rackmount, seagate, SMR, Storage Server
eRacks NAS36 Servers Store More Data At Lower Cost
eRacks Systems NAS36 8TB Seagate Archive Drive upgrade
We can’t help it with our innovations. Our NAS36 servers offered almost 200 Terabytes of data space already. That is considered quite high for a mid-range data storage server. But we just decided to jump even higher and exchange the standard 6-terabyte disks into 8-terabyte ones. That mean our NAS36 model storage servers are now able to hold 288 terabytes of data in total.
The new NAS36 model with higher data capacity brings even more value to our customers not just because of the storage space it provides but also for its price. Yes, we have decided to slash the prices down below $25,000. That is going to bring considerable saving to our customers. [UPDATE Sep 2015: current price for maxed-out 288TB config with Seagate Archive 8TB drives is just under $22,000]
We are proud to announce this latest upgrade as we continue to provide petascale data storage servers at affordable prices.
We remain dedicated to open-source systems. We also remain committed to delivering pre-installed, pre-configured systems to our customers.
The NAS36 servers are rack-mount servers. We designed the 4U unit specially to hold large number of drives in a very limited space. That leaves ample amount of space for other necessary accessories inside your data center rack.
The 36 drives in the unit are all Seagate Archive Drives, mounted on a single backplane and controlled by a RAID controller. The unit holds 24 drives in front and 12 in the back making the unit case quite compact.
eRacks Systems is a leading provider of high-capacity, petascale data storage server solutions to companies and enterprises requiring massive amounts of storage data.
Our servers are suitable for application and web security on the cloud as well as Near-Line Storage. They are also configurable for NAS (Network Attached Storage) applications.
For a great storage solution at a considerable low price, contact us. We are available through email, phone and our website.
Ron August 19th, 2015
Posted In: NAS36, New products, Open Source, servers, Upgrades
Tags: 288TB-class, 8TB, Archive Drives, Cloud Computing, Cloud Storage Server, HDD, Hybrid Cloud, Internet, linux, NAS36, Open Source, Private Cloud, Rackmount, seagate, Storage Server
Upgraded eRacks/NAS24 – 200-TB-class Storage for $14,880
We’ve upgraded our popular eRacks/NAS24 rackmount storage server for higher-storage-density – new 8TB Archive drives allow price-breakthrough $/density of nearly 192TB going for $14,880.
Configurable now, it combines a rack usage of only 4U with a density of 24 drives, which, when combined with the available technology of 8TB drives, yields a total storage configuration of up to 192TB.
What makes eRacks/NAS24 so unique
eRacks/NAS24 Storage Server
eRacks/NAS24
Motherboard: eRacks Intel Dual Xeon E5-2600 v2/v3 IPMI motherboard
CPU: Intel Xeon E5-2609 v3 (15M Cache, 1.90 GHz)
Memory: 4GB DDR4 Memory (2133/2400/2666) ECC / REG
Hard Drives: Seagate Archive 5-8TB 3.5″ SATA6 5900RPM SMR Hard Drive
RAID card: RAID 6 (striped with dual parity)
OS: 2x SSD 120GB Samsung 840 EVO or better, Mirrored
Email us at info (at) eracks.com or via our contact page at eracks.com/contact if you have any questions.
Read More in our Press Releases:
PR newswire – http://www.newswire.com/press-release/eracks-announces-upgraded-eracks-nas24-200-tb-class-storage-for
e-releases – http://eracks.com/mar-11-2015-eracks-announces-upgraded-eracks-nas24-200-tb-class-storage-under-20000/
Dennis
eRacks
Dennis April 13th, 2015
Posted In: NAS24, Open Source, Operating Systems, Reviews, servers, Upgrades
Tags: 200TB-class, 8TB, Archive Drives, Cloud Computing, Cloud Storage Server, HDD, Hybrid Cloud, Internet, linux, NAS24, Private Cloud, Rackmount, seagate, Storage Server, ubuntu
eRacks/NAS36 Upgrade, 100TB / 4U / Under $20K
eRacks Open Source Systems announces the immediate availability of the eRacks/NAS36 rackmount storage server, with 36 removable 3.5″ hard drives, which yields a maximum of 144TB (Terabytes*) of raw storage with current widely-available technology. The eRacks/NAS36 rackmount server is shipped pre-configured to the user’s custom specs, with any available open-source software, and more flavors of Linux or BSD available than any other vendor.
Fremont, CA (PRWEB) February 14, 2014
eRacks Open Source Systems is pleased to announce theeRacks/NAS36 rackmount storage server.
Available immediately, it combines a rack usage of only 4U with a density of 36 drives (24 front and 12 rear), which, when combined with the current technology of widely available 4TB drives, yields a total storage of 144TB.
With the forthcoming 6TB drives from WD HGST, this will increase to 216 Terabytes*, giving a truly petascale solution in only 4U of rackspace.
This rounds out eRacks’ line of rackmount multi-drive storage servers and NAS solutions, nicely filling the gap between the 24-drive eRacks/NAS24 and the all-front-loading 50-drive eRacks/NAS50, eRacks’ flagship storage server.
When populated with 36 removable drives in only 4U, this represent a density / price breakthrough – using the best value (lowest price/TB) 3TB drives, this enables 108TB of raw storage in only 4U, and for less than $20,000, as configured on the eRacks website.
The unit is also available partially populated, at a reduced price, to make it accessible at a lower initial price, and the storage 
can be increased later by filling the empty drive trays.
It’s signature service, eRacks will be happy to install any of the popular Linux distributions on request – Ubuntu, Debian, RedHat, Centos, Fedora, even the Arch Linux distro, which is growing fast in popularity, as well as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, or other Open Source OSes.
eRacks will also pre-install any open source NAS software, such as FreeNAS, OpenFiler, NAS4Free and OpenMediaVault, among others – and administrative dashboards and web GUIs are offered on most of these software choices.
Also available is best-of-breed Open Source software for BigData / Cloud storage, NAS, and networking – including Hadoop, MooseFS, CIFS, GlusterFS, etc – and eRacks is a partner with MooseFS.org.
In addition, the eRacks policy is to install any Linux/BSD distro or Open Source software on request – Contact eRacks today at info(at)eracks(dot)com to see how they can meet your needs.
*For the purposes of this press release, the term “Terabyte” is used to mean one trillion bytes – eRacks understands the issues about this, we are using the term as the disk drive and other industry manufacturers use it.
Regards,
Dennis
Dennis February 14th, 2014
Posted In: NAS36, Open Source, servers, Ubuntu 14.04, Upgrades