New Kscape Products

[todo]

I asked Jim on the phone - but asking again - is download faster on SSD Prime Terra than the HDD Prime Terra.
My plan is to get the 7.76 TB SSD OR the 8TB HD Prime Terra - speed being the sole reason.
We know the SSD speed as in posts above (provided you have enough Internet speed) what about HD Prime Terra?
Thanks

 

[tov5005]

I asked Jim on the phone - but asking again - is download faster on SSD Prime Terra than the HDD Prime Terra.
My plan is to get the 7.76 TB SSD OR the 8TB HD Prime Terra - speed being the sole reason.
We know the SSD speed as in posts above (provided you have enough Internet speed) what about HD Prime Terra?
Thanks

 

[todo]

Request real world performance screenshot - I have seen this flier also

 

[tayloe]

Assuming 2.5 gigabit Ethernet/internet, Terra Prime HDD will download at ~1.3 Gbps and Terra Prime SSD will download at ~2.1 Gbps.

 

[kob]

How do these numbers compare to the old Terra HDD with 2.5+ gigabit Ethernet? I'm going to upgrade my internet to 5 gigabit ATT fiber soon.

 

[Substance]

The real world max throughput of 2.5Gbe is about 2370Mbps which is about 295MB/s and max throughput of 1Gbe is about 935Mbps which is about 120MB/s.

SATA SSDs can easily sustain 550MB/s read/write speeds. This is nearly twice as fast as 2.5Gbe. Unless Kaleidescape main servers are busy or your ISP is throttling your internet, I wouldn't be surprised Terra Prime SSD will download movies at 2.1Gbps for days with ease.

SATA HDDs can read/write up to 280MB/s but they can't sustain this rate. Data is written on discs at a constant spinning rate(typically 5400rpm) from the outer edge to the inner edge. The read/write speeds are reduced to as low as 80MB/s (about 640mbps) as the HDD head approaches to the inner edge (much smaller radius = slower angular velocity).

If you want to ensure sustained super fast download speeds, you really want the Terra Prime SSD.

The Terra Prime HDD will beat the Terra in download speeds on most occasions but that depends on where the data is written on the discs when you are downloading a movie.

Also keep in mind that modern HDDs have multiple disc platters inside each. 22TB HDDs have 10 magnetic platters. Assuming the data is distributed evenly, these drives will speed up to 280MB/s at the beginning of each ~2.2TB of downloads and slow down to 80-120MB/s before the head skips to the next platter. You can see some Sequential Read/Write Graphs here.

 

[House72]

San Francisco Bay Area. And believe it or not, it’s $39.99/mo.

I live in the Berkeley hills and still only Comcast 1200MBPS and I will not move to SF. Even Berkeley is too much for me, I pay $130

 

[J.Green]

Hey John, is performance in the browser interface improved (e.g., deleting content, uploading custom covers...)?

Browser interface interaction is snappier on the new Terra Prime as compared to a Terra, especially on a system that only has Terra Prime servers. There can be some slowdown as you add more servers to the system or if you have a mix of server types (e.g. a Terra Prime, a Terra, a Strato and an Alto all grouped together).

 

[J.Green]

How do these numbers compare to the old Terra HDD with 2.5+ gigabit Ethernet? I'm going to upgrade my internet to 5 gigabit ATT fiber soon.

The original Terra only supports network speeds up to 1.0 Gbps and would see little to no benefit from being on a 2.5 Gbps network.

@Substance 's post above describing the download speeds achievable with SSDs vs HDDs is spot on so I'll just point at that post rather then repeating it here.

 

[TrackZ]

The original Terra only supports network speeds up to 1.0 Gbps and would see little to no benefit from being on a 2.5 Gbps network.

@Substance 's post above describing the download speeds achievable with SSDs vs HDDs is spot on so I'll just point at that post rather then repeating it here.

I was going to make the same reply as above. But instead, I'll just make the observation that it's cool (in my nerdy opinion) that we surpassed the performance limit of a mechanical drive's writing speed here. It's reflective of overall technology advancing in a positive direction.

 

[Oldred]

Where we are it's not currently easy to get beyond 1gb per sec and so the new hardware has less attraction and TBH with our current usage we have never got into the room before the time taken for a download to complete. So again no benefit today but maybe one day. As someone who was impressed by moving from the acoustic coupler 300bps to a 1200bps modem it's quite a stretch to a 2.5gbps port. Nice. Equally back then I was saving my own home made software files to a cassette tape and now SSD storage captures huge amounts in the blink of an eye.

 

[TrackZ]

Where we are it's not currently easy to get beyond 1gb per sec and so the new hardware has less attraction and TBH with our current usage we have never got into the room before the time taken for a download to complete. So again no benefit today but maybe one day. As someone who was impressed by moving from the acoustic coupler 300bps to a 1200bps modem it's quite a stretch to a 2.5gbps port. Nice. Equally back then I was saving my own home made software files to a cassette tape and now SSD storage captures huge amounts in the blink of an eye.

For me, I'm at 1G service right now. I think my current provider could give me 1.2G if paid a bit more. I wouldn't mind the convenience of turning ~15 minute downloads into <10. But I agree, it usually takes longer than that to get our family of 4 into the room ready to hit play.

I had been considering changing service providers from WoW to AT&T Fiber, but that would cap me at 1 Gbps again. I don't think they go any higher here yet. On the plus side, the 1.2G service from WoW comes with no data caps.

Changing over to 2.5G level networking would be a little involved right now, and I can't get that level of service anyway. But that's now. It'll be a different story before long.

 

[TrackZ]

EDIT: Oh! I might have been wrong. Looks like AT&T Fiber has a 2G and even a 5G offering. That could change calculus on HDD vs. SSD servers after all.

 

[baltz]

It would be cool if you could use a Terra Prime SSD as a type of download cache.

Basically, always download to the SSD model first, but then when the system is inactive, automatically move content to your slower servers. This would keep the SSD free so that you always have fast downloads (unless you download too many movies too quickly, or you run out of space on your other servers).

I understand that not everyone would want this, though, because of concurrent playback stream limitations on slower servers (e.g. 2 streams on Strato).

 

[Oldred]

It would be cool if you could use a Terra Prime SSD as a type of download cache.

Basically, always download to the SSD model first, but then when the system is inactive, automatically move content to your slower servers. This would keep the SSD free, so that you always have fast downloads (unless you download too many movies too quickly, or you run out of space on your other servers).

I understand that not everyone would want this, though, because of concurrent playback stream limitations on slower servers (e.g. 2 streams on Strato).

I think it makes a lot of sense. Needn't happen automatically for me - but just having the ability to move a movie from one server to the other makes a lot of sense and the immediacy of the faster box can be leveraged when you want to download and watch a new one.

Having said that I don't have the faster server or the provider that supports more than 1gbps and so 'today' that is theoretical. But you idea makes sense to me.

 

[todo]

The original Terra only supports network speeds up to 1.0 Gbps and would see little to no benefit from being on a 2.5 Gbps network.

@Substance 's post above describing the download speeds achievable with SSDs vs HDDs is spot on so I'll just point at that post rather then repeating it here.

My Attic in Texas gets to 110 F (maybe 120) can I install the Terra Prime SSD in such kind of high ambient temperature location?
My networking equipment is in the attic - it would be perfect to install the Terra Prime SSD in the Attic

 

[wilson]

My Attic in Texas gets to 110 F (maybe 120) can I install the Terra Prime SSD in such kind of high ambient temperature location?
My networking equipment is in the attic - it would be perfect to install the Terra Prime SSD in the Attic

The specs for Terra Prime SSD show max of 95F

 

[carajo]

I have been monitoring a complete re-download of 1400 movies to a Prime 88. I see a substantial improvement in download times over the same 1Gig Optimum network. Here are some quick screen grabs.

 

[carajo]

I also noticed that when I was downloading movies to the original terra servers, my other network devices (laptop, tablet, phone) would feel the degraded network, even at times coming to a crawl. (seemed the terra was hogging most of the bandwidth).
The new Prime, has been downloading for 6 days now and we have not experienced any slow downs on other devices at all. Speed tests on other devices show they are not affected at all during the Prime downloads.

 

[Substance]

The original Terra only supports network speeds up to 1.0 Gbps and would see little to no benefit from being on a 2.5 Gbps network.

@Substance 's post above describing the download speeds achievable with SSDs vs HDDs is spot on so I'll just point at that post rather then repeating it here.

I upgraded from 1G to 2G AT&T last year while owning my Terra. As J.Green pointed out, my Terra didn’t benefit from this upgrade but the rest of my home network did. When Terra was downloading fast, there was no bandwidth left for anything else (laptops, iPads, etc.)