What does 1PB of storage look like?

[Initech]

Thought this was pretty interesting:

http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/582-petarack-petabyte-sas.html

http://media.bestofmicro.com/petarack-petabyte-storage-hdd,4-U-321582-22.jpg

[pokerfan]

2. imagine two hundred million washing machines

(1 petabyte) / (5 megabytes) = 214,748,365


‘In September 1956 IBM launched the 305 RAMAC, the first ‘SUPER’ computer with a hard disk drive (HDD). The HDD weighed over a ton and stored 5 MB of data.’

Now go hug your thumb drive.

[baldguy]

3. .

[hobbit709]

4. Here's a 32Gb.

http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/20-171-492-TS?$S300W$

[3waygeek]

5. And now we have 64GB microSDXC...

TIP: if you reformat one of these cards to use the FAT32 filesystem, it will work in older microSDHC devices.

[pokerfan]

9. Here's a 256GB

[BiggJawn]

21. And I thought I was bleeding edge with my first 256 mB thumbie...

And it was EXPENSIVE!

[quakerboy]

6. They have 32 GB microSD cards now

33,000 of those(give or take) and you have your pb.

I believe that is significantly smaller than your average desktop(not counting the hardware to read them). Someone else can check my math if so inclined. According to wikipedia a MicroSD card is 11 mm by 15 mm by 1 mm.

At a cost of only 1 million, not including hardware to read the cards.

Petarack bah. I want to be able to fit it in my dash box, so I have a mobile petabyte.

On edit: the 64 gb card someone posted, if I have my mental math right, takes the total size of a petabyte done that way down to laptop, maybe even netbook size. And at only 154 each, the cost drops to a mere 2.5 million.

[Initech]

10. The hardware to read the cards is $9.99

Or you can get the deluxe model for $55.

[quakerboy]

12. I have approximately 13 of them. I paid approximately $0.37

Ebay. I bid on a ton at a penny each, free shipping. Didn't get any of the first 20 or so, so I upped my bid and one one for a quarter. Then another 12 came through at a penny each. Now I have a plethora of little tiny card readers.

However, for the proposed multi-use situation, I suspect you would need some sort of specialized construction, seeing as I have as yet to meet the computer with 16,500 USB ports.

[Initech]

13. I doubt there's a motherboard made with 16,500 USB ports.

[pokerfan]

14. two words

Daisy chain!

[HopeHoops]

18. That's a cute way to deal with it. I've got three 7-port USB hubs.

They chain just fine and I have yet to have problems with going a wee bit over the maximum cable length.

[pokerfan]

19. It works to a point

Last edited Sun Jan 29, 2012, 03:59 PM - Edit history (1)

The maximum number of USB devices (including hubs) is limited to 127 (2⁷-1).

[HopeHoops]

20. Yes, but it is sort of like SCSI - you can only chain so far.

If you use a LOT of really short cables you could theoretically hit the limit, but I really don't want to know what the performance would be like.

[pokerfan]

22. delete wrong place

[pokerfan]

23. delete

[pokerfan]

24. Reminds me of Project Hydra

Try this again...

The USB Multiheaded Monster...

We can do a little better than 127 devices by using additional USB controllers. Although most PCs are equipped with multiple USB ports, these ports often are on the same controller, and the 127 device limit constrains both ports. Even if we add more controllers, there is an upper limit of 256 USB-serial devices allowed, or r </= 256. This is a limitation of the number of allowable minor numbers for the assigned USB-serial major number, which is 188. More industrious users probably could modify the driver to allow additional majors. Adding additional controllers also may be required in cases where the serial ports have a high baud rate; keep in mind the USB bus is limited to 12Mbps. Timing issues also may keep the usable number of USB-serial adapters below the theoretical limit, but adding controllers is relatively easy and inexpensive.

The other limitation of using USB devices is the interconnect length; cables are limited to a maximum length of five meters. Effective cable length can be extended by using an active device, such as a powered hub or powered extension cable, though even an active extension cable counts as a device. The total depth is limited to seven tiers, counting the root and the bottom device. This means there is a maximum of six 5m interconnects for a total length of 30m. Although 30m is sufficient to reach each corner of our server room, the reach can be increased another 15m by using shielded RS-232 cable to connect the USB-serial adapter to the server console port. Other ways of extending the RS-232 signal are available; for example, use a pair of RS-422 adapters with an effective range of about 1.3km.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6518

[pokerfan]

25. I give up

It won't let me reply to #20.

[HopeHoops]

26. You replied 4 times. Good read!

[pokerfan]

27. For some reason

it kept showing it as replying to myself, which will make one go blind. So I'm told.

[Enrique]

15. I wonder what song they kept on that thing

[2ndAmForComputers]

16. Probably Elvis' "Don't Be Cruel."

But if coded with 128 Kbps, could probably hold "Hound Dog" too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-one_singles_of_1956_%28U.S.%29

[Turbineguy]

7. I remember increasing my memory from 4Kb

to 16 Kb. It was $400.

[undeterred]

8. One Pizza Byte

[tjwash]

11. Now known as "peta-files"

[Iterate]

17. My first 5 mb looked like this:

My memory is probably wrong, as IBM says that unit had 30mb. Obviously, that was before black and white photography had been mastered. It fit into a unit that looked like this:





It was soon replaced by the 3330 drive unit, with a whopping 800mb online. Individual drives were swapped out depending upon the needs of the job being run:





This guy would show up at 10pm on Sunday nights with an 8"/1k floppy and a bad attitude to do "PM". It was magic. No one ever interrupted him. He was a grumpy high priest with two accolades always in tow. He used car oil in his hair.





My role was to feed tapes and overuse 1,1,1-trichloroethane to clean them. Sometimes my shift was at the terminal, which included a small monitor and had commands echoed to a line printer. I usually didn't play the character-based blackjack on the monitor because it slowed the system too much. Those were long nights.

Of course none of it was really mine. It was leased from IBM for somewhere around $20k/month for the drive units alone. I left after a couple of years, as there was obviously no future in it. I went hiking for two months instead.