On the Possibility of Small, Service-Free Disk-Based Storage Systems

For many storage providers, the cost of providing service calls exceeds the costs of the hardware being serviced. In this paper, the authors show that zero maintenance, small disk arrays are too expensive, but that low-maintenance arrays are feasible and describe a possible implementation. The evaluation technique replaces Mean Time to Data Loss with the lifespan. The results also show the impact of the assumption of constant failure rates on the results of modeling.