![]() We had a flurry of inquiries from potential self-builders, but less than 10% followed through and purchased. Of course, in technology, nothing is ever as simple as it seems. Saying yes brought us one step closer to 45 Drives. ![]() On top of that, they asked us if Protocase would be willing to sell enclosures to anyone who might wish to build a Backblaze Storage Pod. This story may have ended there, but the folks at Backblaze generously decided to share their view of what was missing in storage technology, why they developed their pod, and then open-source the design of the pod. It doesn’t slow your computer, and your data is always secure). via an internet connection and a brilliant little utility that buzzes away in the background. (If you don’t know about them, check them out at they sell unlimited backup for your computer for $5/mo. Through inspired design, hard work and multiple iterations, their thoughts were refined into the Large Storage Pod design that is the foundation of their business. Protocase’s design services and rapid mass-custom manufacturing allowed Tim Nufire and his staff to turn their ideas into physical reality. We were fortunate that they stumbled on us, beginning a long and productive relationship. This Silicon Valley-based startup was in the process of refining and implementing their vision of reinventing storage, and was feeling the same pain that Steve and I felt. One particularly fascinating customer was Backblaze. The rest is history – we were correct assuming that others felt our pain, and we’ve built a wonderful niche business by building enclosures, sheet metal parts, and, most recently, machined parts, for scientists and engineers across North America and around the world. The ‘engineering quantities’ that we needed weren’t of interest to the larger, more sophisticated players, and the small shops who would take our jobs would bump us to the back of the lineup if larger orders came in. Protocase was born of the frustration that Steve, I and other colleagues experienced when we tried to buy custom electronic enclosures. ![]() Steve is a mechanical engineer who had worked his career in the electronics industry, eventually becoming VP Ops of a company that built electronics for marine navigation before working with me on various freelance technology projects. I’m writing this because I believe that some will find this story relevant and interesting, and maybe inspire others to develop their ideas to reshape and refine their own areas of computing, just like our friends at Backblaze reshaped large storage.īack around 2002, my friend and now business partner Steve Lilley and I founded Protocase, 45 Drives’ parent company. ![]() In fact, just like the original large storage pods from Backblaze, they were built and used by clients of ours on a custom basis, and we’ve been quietly selling them in soft-launch for some time.Īfter our website went up late last week, we had some time to reflect on where we are, and we thought there were some interesting stories to tell about how large storage pods and the storage community created 45 Drives, and how we’ve been a conduit for the evolution of large storage pods. I put quotes around “launch” because it’s not really a conventional product launch, because these new products have been built and sold for some time. Over the last couple of months, everyone at 45 Drives has been totally immersed in work related to “launching” the new Storinator models that just went up on our site last Friday.
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