A redditor acquires a decommissioned Netflix cache server with 262TB of storage

A Reddit person named PoisonWaffe3 recently acquired A 2013-era Netflix cache server that was pulled from service and wiped for deletion, marking a uncommon event when the general public acquired a have a look at the mysterious {hardware}, Vice reports.

The decommissioned cache server – referred to as “Open Join Equipment” (or OCA) – operated as a part of Netflix. Open Join content material supply community. Open Join is a community of servers all over the world embedded with local ISPs which comprise native copies of Netflix video content material, rushing up the supply of that content material to Netflix viewers by inserting it as shut as potential to the viewers (each geographically and from an online hop perspective).

Netflix offers plenty of superior documentation on Open Connect on its web site, however so what is not widely known it is what particular elements make Open Join’s servers — particularly one which’s practically ten years previous. After eradicating three screws, PoisonWaffle3 seemed inside his unit and found a “pretty commonplace” SuperMicro board, an Intel Xeon CPU (E5 2650L v2), 64GB of DDR3 RAM, 36 7.2TB Western Digital exhausting drives (7,200 RPM), six 500GB Micron SSDs, a pair of 750-watt energy provides, and one four-port 10-gigabit Ethernet NIC card. In whole, the server incorporates “262TB of uncooked storage,” based on PoisonWaffle3.

PoisonWaffle3 acquired maintain of the brilliant pink Netflix cache server as a result of they work for an ISP that pulled the gadgets out of service. “We’re retiring/changing fairly a number of 2013-era Netflix OCA caches, and I used to be provided one,” they wrote. “After all, I could not say no.”

The person initially sought advice on what to do with the OCA, and options diverse from mining the Chia cryptocurrency (which advantages from plenty of space for storing) to rolling a Plex Media streaming server. Initially, the OCA ran FreeBSD, however the server was fully wiped as a part of the decommissioning course of. As an alternative, PoisonWaffle3 put in TrueNAS, an open supply working system designed particularly for community file storage functions. Whichever path PoisonWaffle3 takes with the {hardware}, 262TB continues to be plenty of storage for one particular person—even in 2022.

Curiously, the now defunct phone community service child prodigy used a neighborhood caching system to distribute information extra effectively utilizing the identical primary precept as Open Join within the Nineteen Eighties and 90s. As an alternative of streaming video, that service merely served textual content information and vector graphics NAPLPS files. Instances have modified, however we nonetheless need quick information.