News ISP Worker Gets Beefy 262TB Netflix Caching Server for Free

[Admin]

A user on Reddit reported that he managed to snag a Netflix caching server for free from the ISP he works for. The server is 10 years old, but still packs a punch, packing 262TB of storage and 64GB of memory.

ISP Worker Gets Beefy 262TB Netflix Caching Server for Free : Read more

 

[jeremyj_83]

Only thing monstrous about this is the storage. Everything else is pretty small by today's standards.

 

[USAFRet]

Nice for free, but they ARE 10 year old spinning drives.

My 80TB QNAP says - 'meh'.

 

[ThatMouse]

The irony is that it will most likely continue to be used to store Netflix content...

 

[jmagar]

And if his house isn't a monster it'll have a third life as a heater for the winter

 

[SyCoREAPER]

Am I not the only one wondering if Netflix will kill/brick this server if only a caching server? Surely they don't want these out in the wild and this breached some sort of contract?

I hope for the best, really, but if video game companies don't want their 13 year old dev kits for irrelevant HW out in the wild, I can't see Netflix feeling much differently.

 

[Integr8d]

I have a similar chassis with 24 bays up front and 12 in the back. And ironically, mine used to run BSD also (Freenas) and now runs Linux (Truenas Scale).

As someone pointed out above, power and heat are issues (as is noise). So all things considered, while cool to have at work, while I wasn’t paying for electricity and AC, it’s overkill for a plex server and basic file serving.

Anyone in the market? Dual 10-core Xeons, 64GB ram and 4x 10Gb intel ports…

 

[bit_user]

Only thing monstrous about this is the storage. Everything else is pretty small by today's standards.

Agreed, but there are benefits of using a proper server platform with RAS features that have actually been validated. That's assuming you value reliability. If someone just wanted to use this as a gaming machine, that would be a mistake.

I'm a little surprised it was only single-CPU, especially given that each additional Xeon proportionately increases PCIe lanes. However, as this is pre-NVMe, it probably just has some x8 RAID cards for storage + the network card.

 

[bit_user]

As someone pointed out above, power and heat are issues (as is noise). So all things considered, while cool to have at work, while I wasn’t paying for electricity and AC, it’s overkill for a plex server and basic file serving.

Yup.

Not only that, but my experience with servers is that many are designed without dust filtration, under the presumption they're operating in a clean environment. Run it 24/7 in your home, for a couple years, and the inside will likely be caked with dust.

 

[punkncat]

Am I not the only one wondering if Netflix will kill/brick this server if only a caching server? Surely they don't want these out in the wild and this breached some sort of contract?

In the article (I read) it discusses that the system was wiped and did not come with software. The new owner put FreeNAS on it according to that, so don't really see where they would or could have issue since as far as I could tell (also by the article) that they are the ones who gave it to him while doing other work onsite.

 

[SyCoREAPER]

In the article (I read) it discusses that the system was wiped and did not come with software. The new owner put FreeNAS on it according to that, so don't really see where they would or could have issue since as far as I could tell (also by the article) that they are the ones who gave it to him while doing other work onsite.

I admittidely didn't read it and went by the obvious clickbait/misleading title. It implies it's still a functional caching server. But yeah if it's wiped I guess no issue.

 

[bit_user]

I admittidely didn't read it and went by the obvious clickbait/misleading title. It implies it's still a functional caching server.

No, it didn't. At least, I certainly didn't infer that.

 

[SyCoREAPER]

No, it didn't. At least, I certainly didn't infer that.

ISP Worker Gets Beefy 262TB Netflix Caching Server for Free

That most certain ly infers that it's a functional caching server in its original state.

ISP Worker Gets A Retired Beefy 262TB Netflix Caching Server for free or ISP Worker Gets A Repurposed Beefy 262TB Netflix Caching Server for free

Those titles would make it clear its not a functional caching server.

 

[bit_user]

ISP Worker Gets Beefy 262TB Netflix Caching Server for Free

That most certain ly infers that it's a functional caching server in its original state.

Again, that's not what I assumed.

Functional, as in the hardware still works? Yes. Otherwise, it would just be e-waste.

 

[domih]

Good for him!

I also use "old" data center hardware. I did not get the systems for free, bought them on eBay at a tiny fraction of the $$$ brand new price at the time of original release.

Tip on eBay: do not look for vendors selling one item of a kind, look for the vendors selling stuff by the palette, which means they are carrying used stuff from the data centers which replace their hardware no matter what after 2 or 5 years. Just do your home work.