'Frugal' Facebook considering Blu-ray as cost-effective data storage medium

One fifth the power of server-based hardware, says datacentre ops boss

Facebook is still considering switching to Blu-ray storage as a more cost- and energy-efficient method of retaining longer-term "cold" data for its customers.

"We're looking at using Blu-ray as next generation cold storage," explained Niall McEntegart, head of datacentre operations, East Europe and US at Facebook, speaking today at Computing's Data Centre & Infrastructure Summit 2014.

"There's a lot of manufacturers out there with a lot of excess production," he continued, alluding to the fact that the physical storage industry is seeing a downturn due to streaming services such as Netflix, "and there's a lot of potential there for 10,000 discs in a rack," he said.

Blu-rays, Facebook reasons, will run on only a fifth of the power of server-based hardware – only around 400 watts – and can simply spin down when users do not wish to access so-called "cold" storage such as 10-year-old photos.

McEntegart is a keen proponent of the Open Compute Project, which he says Facebook as supporting because the $200bn company needs to be "frugal".

"Facebook is one hundred per cent free, and that requires us to be very frugal in terms of how we operate our infrastructure," said McEntegart.

"Our heritage is very much around hacking culture, and we'd describe ourselves internally as an engineering company based on hacking culture, and we try to do absolutely as much as we can with as little as possible, for efficiency."

McEntegart would not, however, be drawn on to whether Facebook was considering setting up data centre facilities in China in the near future, saying only, "We're always looking at options. Those change all the time."