Redditor acquires decommissioned Netflix cache server with 262TB of storage - Ars Technica

netflix truly comes location —

2013-era server offers uncommon peek nether the hood of Netflix's Open Connect network.

Benj Edwards - Oct 27, 2022 9:26 p.m. UTC

Enlarge / An Open Connect Appliance server from astir 2013 that a Redditor acquired.

A Reddit idiosyncratic named PoisonWaffe3 recently acquired a 2013-era Netflix cache server that had been pulled from work and wiped for disposal, which marks a uncommon juncture the nationalist has been capable to get a look astatine the mysterious hardware, Vice reports.

The decommissioned cache server—called an "Open Connect Appliance" (or OCA)—operated arsenic portion of Netflix's Open Connect contented transportation network. Open Connect is simply a web of servers astir the satellite embedded with section ISPs that incorporate section copies of Netflix video content, accelerating the transportation of that contented to Netflix viewers by putting it arsenic adjacent to the viewers arsenic imaginable (both geographically and from a position of web hops).

Netflix provides plentifulness of high-level documentation astir Open Connect connected its website, but what isn't wide known is what circumstantial components marque the Open Connect servers tick—especially 1 that is astir a decennary old. After removing 3 screws, PoisonWaffle3 took a look wrong their portion and discovered a "pretty standard" SuperMicro motherboard, an Intel Xeon CPU (E5 2650L v2), 64GB of DDR3 RAM, 36 7.2TB Western Digital hard disks (7,200 RPM), six 500GB Micron SSDs, a brace of 750-watt powerfulness supplies, and 1 quad-port 10-gigabit Ethernet NIC card. In total, the server contains "262TB of earthy storage," according to PoisonWaffle3.

PoisonWaffle3 acquired the agleam reddish Netflix cache server due to the fact that they enactment for an ISP that was pulling the devices retired of service. "We are retiring/replacing rather a fewer 2013 epoch Netflix OCA caches, and I was offered one," they wrote. "Of course, I couldn't accidental no."

The idiosyncratic primitively sought advice connected what to bash with the OCA, and suggestions ranged from mining the Chia cryptocurrency (which benefits from tons of retention space) to moving a Plex media streaming server. Originally, the OCA ran FreeBSD, but the server had been wholly wiped arsenic portion of the decommissioning process. Instead, PoisonWaffle3 installed TrueNAS, an unfastened root operating strategy designed specifically for web record retention applications. Whatever way PoisonWaffle3 takes with the hardware, 262TB is inactive a batch of retention for 1 person—even successful 2022.

Interestingly, the now-defunct dial-up online work Prodigy utilized a section caching strategy to administer information much efficiently utilizing the aforesaid basal rule arsenic Open Connect successful the 1980s and '90s. Instead of streaming video, that work simply served substance information and vector graphic NAPLPS files. Times person changed, but we inactive privation speedy data.