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Helpful videos, blogs, articles & more

Ceph & Clustering

Adding Dedicated Journals to Existing OSDs

Brett adds to his unofficial video series "I Wish This Video Existed When We Learned This Ourselves" and walks you through the process of how to add dedicated journals to existing OSDs... Read more...

Multi-Site Storage Clustering

Brett talks about the dos and don'ts of multi-site clustering. Specifically, he contrasts the difference between multi-site and disaster recovery and between asynchronous and synchronous clustering with Ceph. Read more...

Ceph on Windows

SUZE Linux and CloudBase Solutions have released their first public beta of native Windows drivers for Ceph. Read more...

A Deeper Dive into Multi-Site Storage Clustering

I thought we would do this week is go a little more in-depth on Ceph object multisite in particular. It's really well fleshed out. It's really well supported and it's really cool. So let's jump in Read more...

Public and Private Webinars

A rundown of the free public and private webinars that we offer. Like the open-source community that we know and love, we want to share our knowledge about storage to anyone who is interested in learning about it. Read more...

Ceph Geo-replication

We talk about a new project that 45Drives has been working on using Ceph Geo-Replication. What's even more exciting, this project is now ready to be released to the open-source community! Read more...

Storage Clustering with Small Data Sets

We talk about storage clustering with Ceph using small data sets. You might think that clustering isn’t really the appropriate solution for users with small amounts of data. Read more...

Ceph Monitors for CephFS Shares

We answers a question with another analogy! This time, he talks about the recommended number of Ceph monitors to specify when mounting CephFS shares. Read more...

Intro to Ceph Clustering

Co-founder Doug Milburn talks about when to consider upgrading from a single server infrastructure to a storage cluster with Ceph software. Read more...

Understanding Ceph-Ansible Playbooks

An overview of our Ceph Ansible playbooks. Taking our playbooks for a "test drive" is a great way to find out whether this solution will work for your end application. Read more...

Ceph Deployment Tools

An overview of the main tools that are available to deploy a Ceph storage cluster. He introduces Ceph deploy, Cephadm and Ansible, discusses why we love Ansible at 45Drives and gives an outlook on where he thinks the Ceph developers are going next with these tools. Read more...

Questions & Answers from our Public Ceph Webinar

Our hugely successful webinar inspired many great questions from our customers. Our R & D team worked hard to provide expert answers to your questions. Read more...

How Ceph Stores Data

So today we're talking Ceph again, and in particular how its stores. And so, in the past I've talked - kind of high level, how it stores its data, replication, erasure code... Read more...

Sizing Large Ceph Clusters

Okay, so the reason I come to you today is we're talking about sizing big Ceph clusters, but it is a conversation I end up having a lot with our sales team and prospective customers. Read more...

Ceph and Its Components

So we've talked a lot on the channel about CephFS, why we love it here at 45 Drives, as well as we've gone in a little deeper on how to expand a storage cluster. Read more...

Expanding a Ceph Cluster

So Ceph, you've heard us talk about Ceph before, but Ceph is an infinitely scalable storage platform. It's self-healing, it rearranges its own data to... Read more...

Why CephFS is Great

So there's a couple things that make CephFS the best distributed file system, but first of all it is fully POSIX compliant and it's got full support for Linux extended attributes. Read more...

Show All

ZFS & RAID

Choosing the Right RAID Configuration

Alright so choosing the right RAID level is really going to depend on what is most important for you and the application you're going to be using. Read more...

ZFS Snapshots

So a ZFS snapshot is a copy of a data-set or a volume that takes up nearly zero space and can be created almost instantly due to the way ZFS works with its copy-on-write system. Read more...

Linux RAID vs ZFS RAID

So before we dive in I thought first I would just give a little explanation on what RAID is and why it's useful. Read more...

ZFS Best Practices

Alright, so for best practice number one we're going to talk about ZFS installs. So you're always going to want to install ZFS on a 64-bit kernel. Read more...

ZFS 80 Percent Rule

So ZFS kinda is very transactional in how it makes a right. It's almost more like a database than a streaming file system, and this way it's very atomic... Read more...

ZFS Caching

ZFS is an advanced file system that offers many beneficial features such as pooled storage, data scrubbing, capacity and more. Read more...

RAID and RAIDZ

ZFS, the file system for FreeNAS, has its own software RAID implementations. They are named differently but are functionally identical to normal RAID. Read more...

Houston

We Built a Visual Benchmarking Module for Cockpit

Our lead engineer, Brett Kelly gives us another sneak peek at a new module for Houston. In the second video of our "get em' out of the command line" Houston series, we show off a visual benchmarking module that quickly and easily gives you performance stats for your storage system... Read more...

Why We Built a Visual File-Explorer For Cockpit (Houston)

Our lead engineer, Brett Kelly gives us a sneak peak at an anticipated new module that our R&D team has been working on within Houston. Check out this video to find out why we built a visual file-explorer for Cockpit.... Read more...

Creating Snapshots with Houston

Part two of our three-part series on switching an existing server running FreeNAS over to Ubuntu and Houston. Last week, part one focused on alerts and monitoring. This week, Brett shows you how to set up automated snapshots and backing up your data using our Houston Command Center. Read more...

Alerts and Monitoring with Houston

We answer a user-submitted question about the features of our Houston Command Center. This video is one in a three part series on how to switch an existing server running FreeNAS over to Houston running on Ubuntu. Read more...

Setting up a Storinator with Ubuntu and Houston

A step-by-step walkthrough to show users how to set up a Storinator using a fresh install of Ubuntu and our Houston Command Center. Read more...

Houston ZFS and Hardware Modules

An awesome overview of the ZFS and hardware modules inside 45Drives new user interface - Houston. He shows how easy it is to set up storage pools, shares, snapshots, and more. Read more...

Misc

Subscribe to the Direct Wire

Our Technology Education Manager, Ashely introduces a newsletter series called "The Direct Wire". Interested in becoming a member? Visit our website today to learn more, and become a member of The Direct Wire.... Read more...

Understanding Filecoin Cryptocurrency

Filecoin is the name. And we've been getting a whole lot of interest in it lately. So, I'm going to go through what it is, how you might be able to use a Storinator to take part in the network and then also some of the history on it as well. Read more...

Migrating Virtual Machines

We walk you through how to move your VMs from ESXi to Proxmox. Please note: The process outlined in the video will also work for oVirt, but users will want to use the QEMU-IMG tool rather than the QM tool. Read more...

Using Ansible for your IT Infrastructure

Alright, so what is Ansible? Ansible is an open source framework tool for administering, updating, pretty much anything you'd ever need to do with your IT infrastructures. Read more...

CentOS and FreeNAS

Here at 45 Drives we have a few characteristics that are at the core of our identity, and one of those is being... Read more...

Amazon S3 – What Is It & What Does It Do?

When most people use S3 (Simple Storage Service), the first thing they think about is Amazon Cloud Storage... Read more...

Basics

Setting up remote management

Storinators use a remote management interface called IPMI, which stands for intelligent platform management interface. Read more...

What is Split brain and why do you need to worry about it?

Split brain is a state of a server cluster where nodes diverge from each other and have conflicts. Read more...

Disaster Recovery VS High Availability

Planning out your business continuity can take time, but it could be a significant cost saver in the long run. Read more...

What is a NAS (Network Attached Storage) Appliance

A NAS, or network-attached storage server, is a device that serves as a central location for data storage on your own network. Read more...

Why Enterprise Drives are Best

When you need reliability, high performance at a larger capacity - enterprise drives are the best option for a trouble-free operation. Read more...

IPMI Security

So as I touched on in a previous video, the IPMI is a great interface for system administrators to manage their server. And it does this by way of the BMC or the... Read more...

45Drives

The Origin Story of 45Drives

Brett Kelly here for another 45Drives Tuesday Tech Tip, except this week, it's less of a tip and more of a story people ask all the time. And we love telling the story, frankly. Where do you come from, what is the origin story of 45 Drives? So let's get into it. Read more...

Storage as a Service

What is STaaS? STaaS stands for storage-as-a-service, and it's part of the whole trend towards renting or subscribing to some sort of IT infrastructure, which probably started with software-as-a-service or SaaS. Let's come back to STaaS in a little while. But first, let's talk about why it exists in the first place. Read more...

Introducing the Mi4 and C8 Servers

Introducing two new products from 45Drives; the Mi4 and the C8. These front loading servers are perfect for storage infrastructures that need to be affordable and high-performing but don't necessarily need a massive amount of storage. Read more...

New Operating System for 45Drives Storage Servers

An update on our operating system of choice going forward for our server products. You may have heard that IBM and RedHat are "killing off" CentOS Linux. This has forced us to be a little more strategic, as we choose a new primary operating system going forward. Read more...

45Drives vs Legacy Vendors

Ashley talks about the advantages and longevity of a 45Drives storage server compared to those provided by legacy vendors. She talks about "planned obsolescence" and how some legacy vendors plan to have a pre-determined life for their hardware. Read more...

Origin Story of 45 Drives

Alright, so the story begins with Protocase. So for those who are unaware, (Protocase, I’m wearing the hat today) Protocase is 45 Drives’ parent company. Read more...

Hardware and Redesign

Storinator Re-Design: Modular Drive Cages

Brett focuses in on one of the major mechanical improvements of the Storinator which is the modular drive cages. These drive cages will improve user feel and serviceability when it comes to managing your Storinator storage server. Read more...

Storinator Re-Design - Direct-Wired Backplanes

Brett focuses in on one of the major improvements of the Storinator which is the direct-wired backplanes. These backplanes give us the ability for hot swapping and staggered spin-up. Read more...

Direct-Wired Architecture of the Storinator

Okay, so the Storinator storage pod is essentially a bunch of hard drives or SSD’s, if you see in our Stornado, attached to a motherboard, and how do you attach all these drives to a... Read more...

PetaSAN

PetaSAN Benchmarking

We continue on with an in-depth look at PetaSAN with benchmark testing using our starter storage cluster of (3) AV15 servers. Read more...

An In-Depth Overview of PetaSAN

An in-depth overview of PetaSAN; a great purpose-built appliance for Ceph iSCSI storage. Read more...

How PetaSAN Plays Well with Ceph iSCSI

We talk about the two ways that Ceph is exported with iSCSI via "the Red Hat way" and the "SUSE Linux way". Plus, Brett introduces PetaSAN which is a purpose-built appliance for Ceph iSCSI storage. Read more...