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The Direct Wire

Issue 2:  This was our best decision ever.

This was our best decision ever.
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Issue #2

In this issue: 

Feature Story

 

Our Best Decision Ever.

Have you ever lay awake late at night, unable to sleep, retreading over the small mistakes you made years ago, physically cringing? Or do you think about the good stuff you did, consider one of the big wins you had, and go to sleep happy?

Looking back, going to direct wired architecture was one of the best decisions we ever made as a company

If you're unfamiliar with direct-wired architecture - it means there is a 1 to 1 connection for the drive to the system with the full throughput of each drive in the server. The drives connect through a card called the LSI 9305. The LSI 9305 is our standard option at 45Drives, although others are available.

Check out this blog to find out what prompted us to go direct-wired and why it turned out to be such a great decision.
 

Why we went direct-wired.

 

Weekly Tech Tip


We Updated The Houston ZFS Module

Back in January, our team released a new module inside our Houston Command Center for setting up storage pools, shares, snapshots, and more. This ZFS module has recently been updated and will be a part of our July 6th, 2021 launch of new Houston features/modules for Cockpit users.

Our lead engineer, Brett Kelly, gives us a rundown of what's new inside our ZFS module in this week's tech tip. He also gives us a sneak peek at the final module update before our July 6th release.

Remember, the theme behind all of these new features is to get everyone out of the command line and make setting up and managing your storage infrastructure a breeze!
Watch here!

 

4-5 Min Read

How Does ZFS Do Its Read and Write Caching?

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

One of the most beneficial features of ZFS is the way it caches, reads, and writes. ZFS allows for tiered caching of data through the use of memory. ZFS offers several caching levels for both reads and writes that can be complicated if you're unfamiliar, that’s why we're making it easy with a throwback to our ZFS Caching article.

In fact, this article was one of our most popular articles ever. Click the link below to learn all about how ZFS caches from an easy-to-understand, high-level perspective.

Find out how ZFS does its read and write caching here.

 

Bits & Bytes:

You're Grounded! Wait, are you?

Did you know it's important to make sure you're grounded when doing hardware upgrades? 

 

Fan Fun:

 

Let's Have Some Fun! 

We all know who released the first commercially successful multi-panel interface OS.

But without Googling (no, no Bing either),  which company built several thousand desktop and GUI-based computers around ten years earlier to be used internally?
The answer is found at the bottom of this newsletter.

 

How To:

 

Add Cache Drives (L2ARC) to Zpool

L2ARC can be used to improve the performance of random read loads on your system.

In a ZFS system, a caching technique called adaptive replacement cache (ARC), caches as much of your dataset in RAM as possible. This frequently allows data to be accessed quickly, much faster than having to go the backing HDD array. It follows that more RAM means more ARC space which in turn means more data can be cached.

As you would have seen if you read our ZFS caching article, L2ARC exists on an SSD instead of much quicker RAM. It is still far faster than spinning disks though and much cheaper than RAM, so when the hit rate for ARC is low, adding a L2ARC could have some performance benefits. Instead of looking at the HDDs to find data, the system will look at RAM and an SSD to improve performance. L2ARC is usually considered if the hit rate for the ARC is below 90% while having 64+ GB of RAM.

Awesome right? Well, keep reading! The article below walks you through in detail the process of adding an L2ARC or cache drive to your zpool. 

Click here to keep reading.
Want to learn more about ZFS? 

If you're looking to learn more about data storage and want to learn about ZFS in particular  - sign up for a FREE webinar!

Our education team here at 45Drives will help you understand the basics of  ZFS and give you the "know-how" to be confident in your storage solution decisions.
Sign up for our ZFS webinar here!

 

Architecture Flex:

The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME

Canada's CHIME is making headlines again! CHIME has detected hundreds of mysterious fast radio bursts in space - cool, right?

But did you know they store their data on a Storinator? Learn more about CHIME here

Watch CHIME interview here.
Want to be featured in The Direct Wire?

Send us your Storinator setup, pitch us a story or become a guest blogger! We'd love to hear from you and feature you on our website and in The Direct Wire!  
Email The Direct Wire

 

Fan Fun Answer

The answer is : Xerox
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Newsletter Archives

1. Cockpit now has a visual file explorer

2. This was our best decision ever.

3. 45Drives Build File Sharing Module for Cockpit

4. New Houston Modules for Cockpit are Live!

5. Do you have a business continuity plan?

6. Do you need high availability?

7. Five Ways 45Drives Can Help Manage Your Storage

8. Clustering Simplified Using Houston's Modules

9. 45Drives now fully supporting Rocky Linux

10. It's finally here!

11. We're live with Rocky Linux!

12. Learn how to increase security for Houston UI

13. What happens when you put a Storinator in the dryer?

14. The Jeff Geerling Inspired Storinator

15. Demystifying Benchmarking Myths

16. Discover the Benefits of an Open Source Storage Server

17. Updates to Houston's File Sharing Module

18. Work & collaborate from anywhere in the world...

19. Discover the Benefits of an Open-Source Storage Server

20. Everyone can use more data storage.

21. Indexing Files on a Mac Made Easy

22. Setting up offline package repositories

23. Is it time to scale your data storage?

24. Black Friday Cold Storage Sale!

25. Join the 45Drives Creator Cartel

26. Find out if a cluster is right for you.

27. So, we took down our Ceph cluster

28. Top 5 Tips For Surviving The Winter

29. Happy New Year!

30. Become a beta tester!

31. Learn how to manage data storage efficiently

32. How to Implement ZFS Encryption for Data Safety

33. Design Your Own Custom Front Plate!

34. We're Now Offering 24/7 Support✨

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37. Find your perfect storage solution

38. The 45Drives video series you've been waiting for!

39. Data Storage Emergency?

40. Our Version of Spring Cleaning

41. Maximize Your Hardware With Virtualization

42. Should You Virtualize Your Storage?

43. Did you miss out on these services?

44. We've Streamlined Our Support

45. Is it time to wipe those old hard drives?

46. How to back up your virtual machines with Proxmox

47. Everything you want to know about virtualization

48. Need more data storage?

49. Is it time to cluster your data storage?

50. Ceph - Are you missing out on this solution?

51. Building a ZFS Storage System 💥

52. Doing some research on new storage solutions?

53. Have Your New Storage Solution in 5-7 Days 🚀

54. Summer Sizzler Sale ☀

55. We make storage easy — see for yourself!

56. Can we help?

57. Learn more about our architecture consultations

58. We're on a podcast with Tom Lawrence 💫

59. We made our own Linux Server UI 💥

60. Learn how to manage and administer Ceph storage solutions

61. Don't worry, we got you!

62. Doing some research on new storage solutions?

63. What are the Best Practices when Using CephFS & Samba?

64. We've made some major mechanical changes 👀

65. The next generation is finally here.

66. Want NVMe now? 🔥

67. The biggest reason to order your Hybrid Storinator

68. Doing some research on new storage solutions?

69. Get NVMe now: Here's how...

70. Want ESXi functionality without the licensing fees?

71. Get the features of ESXi without a yearly subscription

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79. Stop what you're doing—we're giving this away for FREE.

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81. Have Your New Storage Solution in 5-7 Days 🚀

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