今年的 EFF Awards 頒給了 Sci-Hub 的創辦人 Alexandra Elbakyan

在「Sci-Hub’s Alexandra Elbakyan Receives EFF Award for Providing Access to Scientific Knowledge」這邊看到 EFF 把今年的 EFF Awards 頒給了 Sci-Hub 的創辦人 Alexandra Elbakyan。而 EFF 原始的公告在「Electronic Frontier Foundation to Present Annual EFF Awards to Alexandra Asanovna Elbakyan, Library Freedom Project, and Signal Foundation」這邊。

維基百科對 Sci-Hub 的介紹在開頭說的頗清楚,Alexandra Elbakyan 選擇無視 copyright,提供論文免費下載:

Sci-Hub is a shadow library website that provides free access to millions of research papers, without regard to copyright, by bypassing publishers' paywalls in various ways.

而 EFF 肯定這樣的行為促進了科學知識的傳遞:

Kazakhstani computer programmer Alexandra Asanovna Elbakyan founded Sci-Hub in 2011 to provide free and unrestricted access to all scientific knowledge.

很像是 EFF 會幹的事情沒錯 XDDD

Backblaze 的 2021 年硬碟死亡報告

Backblaze 放出 2021 年的硬碟統計數據了:「Backblaze Drive Stats for 2021」。

最後一張圖是 Backblaze 機房內還活著的硬碟資訊,大概是整篇裡面最有用的 (而且有 AFR 的信心區間),先拉出來看:

比較好奇的是還沒有導入 18TB 的硬碟...

另外從上面依照廠牌分類的部份也可以看出個感覺,這時候如果再針對各廠牌的歷史記錄拉出圖的話就很殘酷了,要說 Seagate 不愧是 Seagate 嗎 (大家的刻板印象好像也不刻板了,數字都對的上...):

如果就廠牌可以看出來 HGST 不論哪個型號,死亡率 (AFR) 都很低,而 Toshiba 與 Seagate 則是很吃型號,有的型號 AFR 很高,但有的就蠻低的...

另外裡面有提到一個比較有趣的現象,大顆硬碟的 AFR 反而比較低,目前猜測是新硬碟的關係,但時間要拉長才會看的比較明顯,不確定是不是有什麼技術發展出來 (過個幾年再回來看的意思):

話說前陣子才送修一顆 Seagate 的硬碟回來 (還在保固內),SMR 的死亡率果然高不少...

Backblaze 在 2020 年對機械硬碟的回顧

前幾天 Backblaze 放了 2020 年的回顧資料出來:「Backblaze Hard Drive Stats for 2020」。

整體的 AFR (Annualized Failure Rate) 在 0.93% 左右,而如果照品牌拆開,HGST 的數字依然是最漂亮的 (雖然他現在是 WD 的品牌),大約在 0.36% 左右 (111/(1083774+4663049+372000+820272+275779+3968475)),Toshiba 次之,大約低了平均值一些落在 0.89%,而 Seagate 光是看就就知道會超過 1%...

官方有提到,低於 250,000 drive days 以下的數據僅供參考,因為資料量太少,在統計上無法提供結論:

For drives which have less than 250,000 drive days, any conclusions about drive failure rates are not justified. There is not enough data over the year-long period to reach any conclusions. We present the models with less than 250,000 drive days for completeness only.

然後 WD 本家的硬碟回到戰線了,記得之前基本上算是被唾棄 XDDD

另外一張表則是講到這三年的情況,可以看出來 2020 年的 AFR 數字降了不少,裡面也解釋了為什麼 (看起來就是活下來的穩下來了...):

The answer: It was a group effort. To start, the older drives: 4TB, 6TB, 8TB, and 10TB drives as a group were significantly better in 2020, decreasing from a 1.35% AFR in 2019 to a 0.96% AFR in 2020. At the other end of the size spectrum, we added over 30,000 larger drives: 14TB, 16TB, and 18TB, which as a group recorded an AFR of 0.89% for 2020. Finally, the 12TB drives as a group had a 2020 AFR of 0.98%. In other words, whether a drive was old or new, or big or small, they performed well in our environment in 2020.