Reddit user PoisonWaffe3 recently acquired a 2013-era Netflix cache server that has been taken out of service and wiped for disposal, marking a rare occasion where the public caught a glimpse of the mysterious material, the bug reports.
The shutdown cache server, called “Open Connect Appliance” (or OCA), was running as part of Netflix. Open Connect Content Delivery Network. Open Connect is a worldwide network of servers integrated with local ISPs containing local copies of Netflix video content, accelerating the delivery of that content to Netflix viewers by bringing it as close to viewers as possible (geographically and from a network hop perspective) .
Netflix provides a lot of high-level documentation on Open Connect on its website, but what is not well known are what specific components make Open Connect servers work, especially those that are about ten years old. After removing three screws, PoisonWaffle3 peeked inside its unit and found a “very standard” SuperMicro motherboard, Intel Xeon processor (E5 2650L v2), 64GB DDR3 RAM, 36 7.2TB (7200rpm) Western Drives Digital Solid State, six 500GB Micron hard drives, a pair of 750W power supplies and a four-port 10Gb Ethernet card. In total, the server has “262 TB of raw storage,” according to PoisonWaffle3.
PoisonWaffle3 got the bright red Netflix cache server because it was working with an ISP that was shutting down devices. They wrote, “We are removing/replacement of quite a few 2013-era Netflix OCA caches, and I was offered one.” “Of course, I couldn’t say no.”
The original user asked for advice on what to do with OCA, and suggestions ranged from harnessing the cryptocurrency Chia (which has a lot of storage) to running a complex file-streaming media server. Originally, OCA turned on FreeBSD, but the server was completely wiped out as part of the shutdown process. Instead, PoisonWaffle3 Tronas, an open source operating system designed specifically for network file storage applications, was installed. Whatever path PoisonWaffle3 takes with hardware, 262TB is still plenty of storage for a single person, even in 2022.
Interestingly enough, the now defunct dial-up service Miracle used a local caching system to distribute data more efficiently using the same basic principle as Open Connect in the 1980s and 1990s. Instead of rendering video, this service rendered text data and NAPLPS vector graphics files. Times have changed, but we still want fast data.
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