Simulation of assets and expenses when conducting business with `` Sia '' that can use 1 TB cloud storage for less than 200 yen per month is being released



Sia , which provides a cloud storage service that can use the blockchain to share the free space of the storage of your computer and borrow the free space of the storage shared by users, Google Drive and Dropbox The reason why we can provide 1 TB cloud storage for about $ 2 per month (about 200 yen), which is cheaper than other services, is released along with detailed cost and revenue figures if we started a business to share storage with Sia .

Cloud Storage for $ 2 / TB / Mo-Sia Blog
https://blog.sia.tech/cloud-storage-for-2-tb-mo-8a34043e93bb

At the time of writing the article, Google Drive's 200 GB plan is 380 yen per month, Dropbox's 1 TB plan is 1200 yen per month, and how cheap the $ 2 per TB (about 200 yen) cloud storage realized by Sia is I understand. Sia publishes in a spreadsheet the specific amount of capital investment and expenses when commercializing the share of storage space using the service.

Sia Storage Pricing Economics-Long Term-Google Spreadsheet
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hGc-DHftI5c9zgJuyfKpQZJPQJfam_TN2tK8qxCzeg4

◆ Capital investment and depreciation
The server that provides cloud storage is assumed as follows. To maintain high availability, you need to purchase expensive parts, but since Sia's cloud storage is distributed across multiple hosts, it is sufficient that the availability of each host is about 95%. thing. If you aim for an operating rate of about 95%, it seems that it can be realized with the minimum required configuration.

For example, since the power consumption for operating 32 HDDs is about 200 W, the power supply is relatively small, 750 W, and the CPU is not a full-scale CPU for servers, it is 4 cores Is assumed. The server can be built for a total of $ 4945 (about 494,500 yen), which is a calculation of $ 26 per TB (about 2,600 yen).

・ 32 6TB HDDs: $ 4,160 (about 416,000 yen)
・ Motherboard with 8 SATA slots: $ 150 (about 15,000 yen)
Eight 4-way SATA data splitter cables: $ 50 (about 5,000 yen)
・ 4-core CPU: $ 95 (about 9500 yen)
・ 32GB of RAM: $ 140 (14,000 yen)
・ 750W power supply with 8 SATA power cables: $ 80 (about 8000 yen)
Eight SATA power splitter cables: $ 50 (about 5,000 yen)
・ 16 HDD cases: $ 160 (about 16,000 yen)
・ Rack: $ 60 (about 6,000 yen)


The cost of building a data center is a budget of $ 1 (approximately 100 yen) per 1 W of server power consumption. The power used by the server assumed this time is about 400 W per unit, so we will budget $ 400 per server (about 40,000 yen) as server construction cost.



Providing cloud storage requires not only servers but also network equipment. If you budget $ 2,000 (approximately 200,000 yen) for network equipment per rack with 8 servers, it will cost you $ 250 (approximately 25,000 yen) per server. Taking into account the labor cost of assembling the servers, which is $ 50 for two hours (approximately 5,000 yen), the calculation cost of building a data center is $ 700 per server (approximately 70,000 yen).

Servers and their construction costs are treated as fixed assets and must be depreciated annually according to certain rules. The average useful life of HDDs is said to be about 7 years, so the acquisition price of the server is $ 5,000 (about 500,000 yen), 15% of which is depreciated with a fixed amount, and the server construction cost Assuming that 5% of $ 700 (approximately 70,000 yen) is depreciated with a fixed amount, the calculation would be $ 785 (approximately 78,500 yen) per year.



ROI (return on investment)
Investors in this business, of course, expect more revenue and profits than the sum of operating costs and depreciation. Since we are investing $ 5,000 (about 500,000 yen) in server acquisition and $ 700 (about 70,000 yen) in server construction, assuming a target ROI of 10%, one server and its construction cost are one You need to make $ 570 per server.

◆ Electricity bill and other expenses
The power used by the server is about 400W, assuming a power supply efficiency of 93%. Mining farms are often installed in places where electricity can be used cheaply, but data centers need a good network environment. Since it is difficult to install in remote areas where electricity costs are low, we assume an electricity cost of 10 cents per kW. Also, assuming that the PUE of the data center is 1.4, the power consumption per server will be 500 W, and the electricity cost will be $ 450 (about 45,000 yen) annually. Internet usage fees are excluded from Sia's profit / loss simulation because users of Sia's cloud services pay bandwidth usage fees separately from the fees for using storage.



This time, we assume that the server utilization rate is 95%, so there is no need to deploy technical staff 365 days a year. In the event of a HDD failure, it seems that you only need to hire a one-off staff, which is assumed to cost $ 50 per year (about 5,000 yen). At this point, the total cost of depreciation, required profits, electricity costs, and maintenance costs will be approximately $ 1,850 per year.

Assuming that the storage utilization rate is 90%, the storage used is reduced from 192TB to 172TB. In addition, Sia's cloud network has a mechanism called “collateral lockup” that secures the storage capacity to be provided. According to this mechanism, if you share 172 TB of data, you have to pay a cost equivalent to about one month's revenue annually. It is also necessary to take into account that there is a fee called 'Siafunds Fee'.



Finally, in order to achieve 95% utilization, it would be necessary to provide 1.5 times the redundancy, so multiply the cost by 1.5 and add redundancy to the server configuration. Calculate the cost after holding. The final cost per month was calculated to be $ 1.5 per TB (about 150 yen). This means that if a business owner rents 1TB of storage for more than $ 1.55, it will be profitable.

According to Sia, this low-cost cloud storage can be provided by a decentralized network that does not need to maintain high uptime. In addition, the cloud storage fee by Sia is actually paid by Sia's token 'SC', so the storage fee also fluctuates according to the price change of SC.

SiaStats.info-Storage pricing
https://siastats.info/storage_pricing

in Web Service, Posted by darkhorse_log