Dropbox Pioneers Future of Cloud Infrastructure with SMR Technology Deployment
June 12 2018 - 12:00PM
Business Wire
Company will be first to deploy SMR at exabyte scale; to
provide open-source software enabling other enterprises to follow
suit
Dropbox, a leading global collaboration platform, today
announced a new chapter in the evolution of Magic Pocket, its
custom-built storage infrastructure. The company is successfully
deploying Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) drive technology, which
will increase overall storage density, reduce the company’s
physical data center footprint, and provide significant cost
savings—without sacrificing performance or reliability. Dropbox
will be the first company to test and deploy SMR technology at this
scale.
Dropbox anticipates approximately a quarter of its Magic Pocket
infrastructure will be on SMR drive capacity by 2019. In the coming
months, the company also plans to open source the test software it
created in the process, which will let other companies qualify SMR
technology for their own enterprise storage environments.
“Creating our own storage infrastructure was a huge
technological challenge, but it's already paid dividends for our
customers and our business,” said Quentin Clark, SVP of
Engineering, Product, and Design at Dropbox. “As more teams adopt
Dropbox, SMR technology will help us scale our infrastructure by
providing greater flexibility, efficiency, and cost savings. We’re
also excited to make this technology open-source so other companies
can benefit from it.”
The move to SMR technology has been a significant undertaking:
Dropbox sourced SMR disk drives from third-party suppliers,
designed a bespoke hardware and component ecosystem around it, and
created new software to ensure its compatibility with existing
Magic Pocket architecture. The company ultimately chose SMR
technology for its unique ability to expand storage capacity from
8TB to 14TB per disk, while still delivering the performance and
reliability the company expects.
This process is another example of the company’s engineering
expertise in building large distributed systems. By the end of
2018, Dropbox will have an infrastructure footprint spanning 29
facilities in twelve countries and four continents, including
storage for users inside and outside the U.S.
Expanding the impact of Magic Pocket
In 2016, Magic Pocket set a new standard in the industry by
introducing an exabyte-scale storage infrastructure that was
exceptionally reliable and secure, and could meet the dynamic
workloads of more than 500 million registered users. The system was
designed to provide annual data durability of over 99.9999999999%,
and availability of over 99.99%. This move to SMR technology is the
next phase in the company’s development of its cutting edge,
custom-built infrastructure.
For more information on how Dropbox engineering is successfully
deploying SMR disk drives at scale in Magic Pocket, please visit
our SMR technology blog.
To read more about how Dropbox created Magic Pocket please visit
our original blog post.
About Dropbox
Dropbox is a leading global collaboration platform that's
transforming the way people and teams work together. With more than
500 million registered users across 180 countries, we're on a
mission to unleash the world's creative energy by designing a more
enlightened way of working. Dropbox is headquartered in San
Francisco, CA, and has 12 offices around the world. For more
information on our mission and products, visit dropbox.com.
View source
version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180612005358/en/
DropboxSteve ImmSteveimm@dropbox.com
Dropbox (NASDAQ:DBX)
Historical Stock Chart
From Aug 2024 to Sep 2024
Dropbox (NASDAQ:DBX)
Historical Stock Chart
From Sep 2023 to Sep 2024