To partially make up for it, I put the 2x3TB of rusty metal storage we get with each of those tiny 600 boxes to good use, by moving us off S3 (which'll save another $100K/year, and a lot more as we continue to grow), so it's not been a total waste. Maybe I should look into Bitcoin mining next? :)
Not necessary if you can displace your own purchases, but my first thought was that maybe you could do something like "Amazon Glacier", offering distributed but rarely used storage for a fee. I presume that Amazon offers this because they have a similar surplus of live empty disk space.
I know you are joking about the Bitcoin mining, but my second thought was that maybe there is a parallel 'proof of storage' idea. There could be a public market for backup storage, where instead of being paid for 'proof of work' one is randomly tested for 'proof of backup'. You say you'll store something, and you are paid based on your ability to answer random 'challenge' requests in a timely manner.
And then I noticed another front page article on HN from someone writing software that could do something very similar:
http://hypered.io/blog/2014-02-17-building-reesd/
Perhaps you could be his backend.
Not necessary if you can displace your own purchases, but my first thought was that maybe you could do something like "Amazon Glacier", offering distributed but rarely used storage for a fee. I presume that Amazon offers this because they have a similar surplus of live empty disk space.
I know you are joking about the Bitcoin mining, but my second thought was that maybe there is a parallel 'proof of storage' idea. There could be a public market for backup storage, where instead of being paid for 'proof of work' one is randomly tested for 'proof of backup'. You say you'll store something, and you are paid based on your ability to answer random 'challenge' requests in a timely manner.
And then I noticed another front page article on HN from someone writing software that could do something very similar: http://hypered.io/blog/2014-02-17-building-reesd/ Perhaps you could be his backend.