[HN Gopher] I'm hosting a website on a RAID0 of 30 floppy drives ___________________________________________________________________ I'm hosting a website on a RAID0 of 30 floppy drives Author : LarryPage Score : 184 points Date : 2022-07-15 17:29 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (totallynormalwebsite.ddns.net) (TXT) w3m dump (totallynormalwebsite.ddns.net) | h2odragon wrote: | turn off the error reporting so you get whats read rather than an | error interrupt and watch the bitrot. Never did that in linux but | it wouldn't surprise me if its a driver option. | random_savv wrote: | Interesting user name | anaganisk wrote: | Imagine a floppy disk based old server surviving "Hug of deaths" | while the latest react based static website hosted on Kubernetes | for infinite scalability on baremetal dies in like 5 sec. | fny wrote: | Imagine indeed. This has been suffocated already it seems. | Images can't even finish loading. | p4bl0 wrote: | Images do not fully load but here I am 35 minutes after you | and the website still responds. That's already better than | many. | anaganisk wrote: | It stayed alive as long it could start going black carbon, | much longer than others I think. | [deleted] | murukesh_s wrote: | The blame would be on baremetal server. They would move to AWS | with multi region EKS clusters and RDS with cross-region | disaster recovery. And a multi-cloud strategy is also in | place.. | anaganisk wrote: | And edge caching on cloudflare or cloudfront. | turdnagel wrote: | Well, edge caching would almost certainly be enough with a | decently high TTL. You don't need all that other junk :) | UberFly wrote: | I'm guessing the floppies are melting right about now. | emiliog07 wrote: | Nextgrid wrote: | I'd expect the vast majority of IO requests to be served from the | kernel's IO cache (we're talking 30 * 1.44MBs here so just under | 50MB, trivial for even an old computer to hold in RAM), thus I | wouldn't be surprised for it to be very fast and reliable as long | as he sticks to read-only workloads - those would never actually | touch the floppies beyond the initial read. | LarryPage wrote: | I did watch -n 1 'sync; echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches' to | try and get around it. I think it's working, because boy is it | noisy lol | hotpotamus wrote: | I'm used to referring to lots of IO as "noisy" or "chatty", | but then I imagine sitting next to 30 floppy drives and that | brings it to another level. | voxadam wrote: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCCXRerqaJI | im_down_w_otp wrote: | This is the greatest thing that anyone has done with any | computer hardware anywhere, ever. This is more impressive | to me than the moon landing. :-) | voxadam wrote: | Make sure you check out his other videos including other | compositions he's done. | | Star Wars theme: https://youtu.be/3KS02q0BUnY | | I Wat to Break Free: https://youtu.be/lbd06i9B2wU | tacker2000 wrote: | The scanners!! This is incredible! | reustle wrote: | If we hit a lot of random sub folder URLs (that should all | 404), would that trigger the webserver to check the drive to | see if the file exists and skip the cache? | jewel wrote: | No. The cache is at the block layer, not the file/directory | layer. So the filesystem will look up the directory | structure, which will be cached. | asveikau wrote: | On top of the block layer cache there's also the namei | cache for filename to inode lookups, I'm not sure if that | covers a file not found case or just a success path, but it | may apply here too. | Vogtinator wrote: | Yep, that's called a "negative dentry". | bch wrote: | Still backed by block layer cache for (hopefully) quick | response regardless of outcome | danachow wrote: | What block layer cache? | koverstreet wrote: | Actually, no. There is no general block layer cache - the | closest thing is the page cache, which is at the file | level. | rootsudo wrote: | Would it be more fun to run a live cd webserver only? piece | together an old computer, with an old live linux installation, | and either run it unupdated or patched and carrying updates it | can only apply w/o reboot? | _joel wrote: | A Knoppix 4 CTF doesn't sound too challenging, tbf mate | | edit: thinking about it, there's some good educational value, | but maybe via vm than plopped on the interwebs :D | bee_rider wrote: | Do people do cyberpunk or sci-fi LARPs? An extravagantly | unpatched server running on a raspberry pi or something | like that would be a kind of fun prop. | alasdair_ wrote: | They do! http://cyberpunk.jackalope-larp.com/ is run both | in-person and online at the same time and apparently has | a pretty high production value. | IntelMiner wrote: | I (briefly) ran an IRC server on a Sega Dreamcast based on | the same ideas | lizardactivist wrote: | I can't even imagine what defragmenting that file-system would | sound like. | bennyp101 wrote: | The parcel tape holding bits together is just _chefs kiss_ | iasay wrote: | I can hear that dying from here. | | Anyone want to try RAID0 on QIC tapes? | iforgotpassword wrote: | The main jpeg seems dead already, not Rendering on Firefox | mobile. | h2odragon wrote: | gonna take some kernel hacking to stretch timeouts or a | restricted access pattern to avoid seeking, I think. | dpedu wrote: | How much power do the floppy drives draw? I can't decide if it | would be more or less than 30 period hard drives. | fsiefken wrote: | i'd be also interested in hosting a website on 1 floppy drive, | including OS. https://bits.p1x.in/floppinux-an-embedded-linux-on- | a-single-... | la64710 wrote: | 5.1/4 inch or 3.5 inch ones? | Zachsa999 wrote: | Site seems to be really slow currently. | [deleted] | tablespoon wrote: | This looks like it's a page about a related project, and has a | video of the RAID in action: https://hackaday.com/2022/06/30/its- | raid-with-floppy-drives/ | hardwaresofton wrote: | This is _awesome_. I already have some suggestions: | | - Put a bird^H^H ZFS on it | | - Switch to RAID10 (a stripe of mirrors), and go 2/3 floppys wide | so you can have some redundancy in each mirror gropu | | - Get some Pis (or other SBCs) and hook those up and run Ceph... | if this keeps going we'll have a SAN soon enough. | | - ZIP disks?[0] | | Also, I don't think I ever want to hear of the "hug of death" for | any site ever again -- I don't think this site hosted on 30 | floppies was hugged to death. | | [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_drive | tolstoshev wrote: | The song's not bad! | dcambie wrote: | Interesting stats at http://totallynormalwebsite.ddns.net/server- | status | eimrine wrote: | So fast website, is it possible to shrink it to one floppy for | seeing some slowingness? | marcosdumay wrote: | It's RAID0. If the OP shrank it to one floppy, it would become | faster and more reliable. | eimrine wrote: | RAID0 adds both speed and capacity. | AnnikaL wrote: | See also: his video about RAIDs of floppy drives | (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hc52_PWeU8). | dylan604 wrote: | Were the "power my car" and "shingle my roof" bits funny? Is | this the level of YT videos to get likes? | LarryPage wrote: | I just do whatever I want | dylan604 wrote: | That's fine, but being a social platform, I assume everyone | is a caricature of themselves. Other creators have | discussed here the near moronic poster/thumb images getting | more clicks vs less overly dramatic versions. So at this | point, I assume that the closer to a program that would fit | in Idiocracy television programming is the ultimate goal to | get those precious likes. | LarryPage wrote: | I know it's fine, because they're my videos and I can do | whatever I want in them lol | dylan604 wrote: | okay, so you're not a caricature of yourself and it's | really you | LarryPage wrote: | yes, correct! | DontchaKnowit wrote: | project is awesome. | | Also- | | Tell me you're into Chiodos without telling me you're into | Chiodos. | | Big ol dose of nostalgia listening to your old metalcore tracks. | ISL wrote: | This is amazing. Website exceeded the high expectations set by | the title. | hk1337 wrote: | That has to be one noisy room. | iasay wrote: | Probably quieter than the DL360 I bought a few months ago and | put on eBay after two hours :) | zimpenfish wrote: | Oh god, flashbacks to an early 2000s machine room absolutely | full of the bastards. | | Thankfully, all entrance doors had an earplug dispenser... | kstrauser wrote: | Oh, is that the one with like 10 1" fans spinning at 8,000 | RPM, so that it sounds like a Harrier jet coming in for a | landing? | iasay wrote: | That's a very accurate description! | aldrich wrote: | Haha, the good old DL360. That fan noise was loud. Let alone | the spinning, whining 15k SCSI disks.. | aliqot wrote: | pause on the audio doesnt work. | deelowe wrote: | Not anymore! | mmh0000 wrote: | I've corrected the title: "I was hosting a website on a RAID0 of | 30 floppy drives -- now my house is on fire" | [deleted] | BrandoElFollito wrote: | Yes, exactly. I am trying to get to the store for a few min | already (from France) and I lost hope. | throwaway742 wrote: | https://web.archive.org/web/20220715175852if_/http://totally... | fny wrote: | Also https://archive.ph/OzYfT | Pakdef wrote: | LoL is all I can think of | MikeAshley178 wrote: | Wonder how long until I can ruin it with Python and Requests. | | P.S I am not going to and I am drunk. | game-of-throws wrote: | You're playing with fire using RAID0. If I had data on 30 floppy | drives, I'd want at least 20 of them to be parity drives. | Retr0id wrote: | Seems like the bitrot is kicking in already. The main JPEG | appears to have bitflip errors: | http://totallynormalwebsite.ddns.net/megafloppy.jpg | | This is what I get, when I download the full image and convert | to PNG: https://i.imgur.com/JF4wtMg.png | | During the conversion (with imagemagick), I get these errors: | convert: Corrupt JPEG data: premature end of data segment | `megafloppy.jpg' @ warning/jpeg.c/JPEGWarningHandler/403. | convert: Corrupt JPEG data: found marker 0x74 instead of RST1 | `megafloppy.jpg' @ warning/jpeg.c/JPEGWarningHandler/403. | convert: Corrupt JPEG data: 206 extraneous bytes before marker | 0xfb `megafloppy.jpg' @ warning/jpeg.c/JPEGWarningHandler/403. | convert: Corrupt JPEG data: found marker 0xfb instead of RST2 | `megafloppy.jpg' @ warning/jpeg.c/JPEGWarningHandler/403. | convert: Unsupported marker type 0xfb `megafloppy.jpg' @ | warning/jpeg.c/JPEGErrorHandler/345. | | Looking closer, all bytes between offset 0x115C00 and 0x11F800 | have been set to 0xf6, and all bytes from there until 0x11FC00 | have been set to 0. | | Bytes from 0x2EFC00 to 0x2F5C00 have been set to 0, followed by | 0xf6's all the way until 0x2FFC00. | | I'd be curious to know what failure mode(s) conjured the 0xf6's | into existence. | | Edit: Original version is here | https://web.archive.org/web/20220715175852if_/http://totally... | kop316 wrote: | heh, that's even worse than when I saw it: | | https://i.imgur.com/Z2HwkwY.jpeg | game-of-throws wrote: | I managed to grab a (hopefully) uncorrupted version somehow. | I'm putting it somewhere other than imgur so they don't | recompress the image. MD5 d30fcc384a8e2de4fab3056bde42b00b. | [EDIT: Removed dead link, use archive.org instead] | | > I'd be curious to know what failure mode(s) conjured the | 0xf6's into existence. | | Today's fun fact: The MS-DOS `format` command fills the disk | with 0xf6, not 0x00. Though this is linux running on Mac | hardware, reading a disk that should have actual data, so | maybe that isn't the reason. | Retr0id wrote: | Perhaps the read head seeked (sought?) to the wrong offset, | causing empty blocks to be read. | birdyrooster wrote: | The link you gave is deleted. | game-of-throws wrote: | Thanks, edited. I guess they didn't like all the traffic. | Luckily archive.org has a copy too. | q1w2 wrote: | hmm... is it possible to correct those errors? I have some | old images with errors, and I've always wondered if it were | possible to fix the individual corrupted bytes to restore at | least the remainder of the photos. | upwardbound wrote: | Yes it's possible, the SpaceX subreddit community did that | to recover imagery from one of the early rocket landings | which was corrupted due to poor antenna alignment between | the transmitter on the landing barge and the remote | receiver. | _joel wrote: | Just quickly remove some drives and set the write protect | slider on them, problem solved, no data loss | drewzero1 wrote: | Oh that write protect could prevent wear and tear! | wahern wrote: | A few years ago I finally bought a USB drive to read an old | 3.5" floppy from the late '90s on which I had archived my | e-mail messages before moving away to college. I completely | forgot about write protection (as well as atime write-backs). | I managed to read a surprising amount of data off of the | disk, but I think less than if I had remembered to write- | protect the disk before inserting it into the drive. The | files were in mbox format, probably from Eudora, but possibly | Pine. As is my habit, I first poked around with ls and less | before copying the files over, and I'm pretty sure I ended up | with more corruption than what I first saw with less. | | Oh well. The irony is that to this day I have a tick of idly | running `sync` at the command prompt, which I developed | dealing with floppy and hard disk corruption running early | versions of Linux. A crash or (IIRC) even a simple reboot | sometimes resulted in disk corruption preventing Linux from | booting. Reinstalling Slackware from floppy disks took quite | awhile on its own, especially if installing the X11 disk | sets, but half the time at least one of the disks would be | corrupted, requiring me to download a fresh copy (using | Windows--I was dual booting) over my 2400 baud modem, and | then restarting the install from scratch. I probably went | through this procedure at least a half dozen times, or at | least enough to develop the tick. It was the best of times, | it was the worst of times.... =) | kjellsbells wrote: | So rare to see ppl writing about sync. | | sync;sync;halt was once a legit way to shut down ;) | ericbarrett wrote: | Don't forget to park the hard drive heads! | aldrich wrote: | Or maybe three times sync;sync;sync just to make sure :) | znpy wrote: | I know of a company whose sysadmins still put | sync;sync;sync in the scripts they deploy on customers' | machines... just because "you never know". | muhammadusman wrote: | that's the point, RAID0 is for speed only | Maursault wrote: | > RAID0 is for speed only | | In this case, the theoretical maximum bandwidth is 24M _Bit_ | /s. | | The problem is the old, slow usb bottleneck. I'm not sure how | much faster, probably hundreds of bps rather than under 24, | but a faster RAID0 rig would be to instead have 30x Mac G4 | Digital Audios connected via gigabit switch, and share then | RAID0 the internal floppies. It would also have whatever | advantage running an XGrid PPC cluster on Tiger might | provide. These boxes also ran PPC Ubuntu; no doubt Linux | would eek out a dozen or so more bps, plus beowulf. | VLM wrote: | I don't know about that BW claim. Back when mp3 was new and | computers usually had floppy drives I did the obvious and | mp3 bitrates above 64K or so tended to stutter and | significantly below 64K did not stutter. | | Something like voice encoded at 32K sounded at least as | good as a phone and played back off a 1.44 floppy and IIRC | that was about the best that could be done. | | You will probably be surprised how long an audio recording | can be, if its voice at a low rate on one floppy. If you go | variable bit rate and silence detection I subjectively | remember "ten minutes" was quite reasonable on a 1.44 disk. | | Extrapolating from historical experience, thirty or so in | parallel should push over half a meg/sec quite reliably. | | If you record speech onto a floppy drive off a cheap mic | you'll record the sound of the floppy in the recording, | which is funny to me. | | I wish I still had those files. Useless, of course, but | would be funny. | ryanmarr wrote: | I've got a Power Mac G5 sitting right beside me if someone else | wants to buy it and get into this G5 floppy website business. | drewzero1 wrote: | Me too. We could start a webring! I just need about 27 more USB | floppy drives. | millzlane wrote: | But where will you put are the Warez? | lostlogin wrote: | That's more the Zip drive era isn't it? | anaganisk wrote: | Yo, are you serious about that? This feels so interesting. | layer8 wrote: | Let's coordinate our web accesses so that it sounds like | Floppotron playing the Imperial March. | shortformblog wrote: | Sean rules and this may be his craziest experiment yet. That's | all. | mikedelago wrote: | There's an accompanying video as well: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hc52_PWeU8 | rovr138 wrote: | I want to see this hosted from them | CodeWriter23 wrote: | For my next trick, a website hosted on a RAID0 Array of 60 RAM | Disks. | zepearl wrote: | We need details - what about ECC yes/no + un/buffered + raid | tech (mdadm/zfs/hardware X/...)? | | Nothing is simple :D ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-07-15 23:00 UTC)