IBM builds biggest-ever disk for secret customer

Originally posted by JohnPhoenix
So.. this is just an array of many disks linked together.. I am NOT impressed. Your title is misleading - this is Not " the biggest disk ever created" it is the biggest hard drive array ever created.

Heck, show me a 3 terabyte hard drive for under a hundred bucks and then i'll be impressed..throw in a 100 gig dvd and a 100 gig flash drive to help back that sucker up and I'll be impressed.. an array of many hard drives.. big fat hairy deal.

You are hard to please, huh? Not impressed with the worlds larges single drive array? And in fact if you knew a little more abbout it you would realise this is effectively a single disk, as far as any operating systems are concerned. Drive arrays are like that.

Everything else you ask for will be on the markets in a few years. Don't worry. Except perhaps the 100Gb DVD, what would be the point?

I remember installing my first ever 1Gb hard drive unit in the finance department server for a company I used to work for back in the early 90's. The whole IT Department came to see it - it was a marvel of technolgy, cost us thousands of pounds, and was the size of a shoe box! It contained up to 16 idividual spinnind double sided disks - as all high capasity SCSI disks did in those days.

So was this a marvel - a single disk drive, or would it not have impressed you at all because it had more than 1 "disk" in it?

Not to shabby the drives alone on the market are worth about 80-150 million dollars depending on what they used. Maybe they got bulk discount, but then again if it's for the gov they probably paid double that and in addition another 400 million to roll it out

Originally posted by Grey Magic
reply to post by iforget

 

Averaging 5 gigabyte a dvd it would be closer to 25.165.824 dvds (1 petabyte is 1024 terabyte is 1024 gigabyte)

Someone is trying to download the internet.

On a more serious note, I have had years where I had data traffic from and to Usenet that went way over 2 terabytes.

So I hope this is for the Internet Service Providers so they can collect their data cheaper, but, it my gut feeling says it has to do with the IBM Human Brain Chip

120 Petabytes is close to what we would need to transfer.

That would be one bad First person shooter game with infinite lifes connected to the internet with thousands of others simulating ww1

My first thought of why this much storage space is needed is for the LHC at CERN. I don't exactly remember how much data they said it output, but i remember the amount being significantly large.

Basically the TPTB need more space in their HDD, to find new ways and save it for killing of humanity.
IBM is a well known TPTB-controlled tech company, hell the whole industry is now controlled by the TPTB.

reply to post by predator0187


I've posted this before but I used to work with the development of Unix based Disk Storage Arrays and our primary customer was the NSA.

I would suspect the recently formed Information Awareness Office whom are storing facial recognition data with all of our information already on file.

In fact this is what Facebook is being used for, to gain access to members facial data.

This information will then be used to automatically track us via facial recognition software in conjunction with these massive databases called the Human Identification at a Distance system using cameras installed on all highways and ports of entry.

The Human Identification at a Distance (HumanID) project developed automated biometric identification technologies to detect, recognize and identify humans at great distances for "force protection", crime prevention, and "homeland security/defense" purposes.

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by nh_ee


Reminds me of the supercomputer 'ARIIA' in the movie 'Eagle Eye.'

Obviously not taking it that far... yet...

But, still scary, nonetheless.

200, 000 mechanical disks? That is insanely inefficient. Why wouldn't they build it using solid state technology?

No moving parts, low heat output, fast throughput, low maintenance -- where is the downside? 200k ssd in a raid would be ridiculously fast.

Here is just a fractional example:

Originally posted by 46ACE
quantum teleportation could require tremendous amounts of data storage to store the quantum state of every atom in an object or body...

Or...

Tron is real?

given it can handle losing alot of drives theres going to be a lot of duplication it won't have the raw capacity as listed

reply to post by predator0187


its for the first run of the experiment to transfer a human mind to HD.

the space is so if new memories are generated at an unprecedented speed there will be room for them.

IMO

When I first read about this biggest disk ever for some secret customer, I like others thought at first that perhaps it was for the big players like the NSA or some military group using it for some major modeling application that requires so much storage space of data.

Then like an epiphany, I had a thought that after considering, I felt I would share, so as to provide a new perspective and a new thought on what this could mean and who the secret customer could be.

I have contended for some time now that secret elements of our nation are in possession of quantum time travel technologies that are being abused in many ways most would never consider.

The secret capability has reached a choke point of sorts because of what super computers have been doing in order to effect change in the present that will alter events toward a specific future that has been identified and pursued with super computers that from a future success point, work backwards to identify all key elements and players necessary to have a successful future outcome. In effect super AI computers from the future telling key players and participants in the present what to do and when to do it.

Whenever some sudden death or accident prevents the time line from being achieved, problems occur that require changes to events and specific people that are necessary to effect certain changes in a certain manner necessary to achieve a specific future that was identified and worked in reverse to achieve by super computers.

These super computers have been learning and are AI computers that have reached a point whereby they need more information that will allow the super computers to more accurately control events needed to meet the end date result being pursued.

I have felt that for some time now that these super computers have high access to all the secrets and access protections that come with the highest security clearances. In effect, these super computers have been running the show behind the scenes by issuing high priority secure and classified electronic messages, secret orders and job orders and even supplies and so forth by using top secret authorization codes and in such a way, these super computers can do whatever is needed to begin changing the future by altering the present by hiding behind the veil of national security and some very top secret classifications.

Anyway, I have suspected for some time now that ever since politicians began pushing for certain elimination of laws necessary to monitor and record everything humans do is when I suspected that these super computers can only achieve future success in their mission directive by the acquisition of lots of data on lots of things both private and corporate in nature.

Consolidation of banking and financial records, real estate and property holdings, medical records, DHS, no fly lists, DMV, voter registration, NCIC and all the new multitude of means of data collection on citizens which even includes DNA and blood data on so many people, that I am certain that task must require tons of data storage to maintain and data mine.

Anyway, this recent IBM media release only goes to support my suspicions that the secret customer is whomever is in direct possession of the secret time travel technology and at this juncture, that customer could very well be a super computer or group of super computers that has directly requested the IBM job order and who has described in very technical computer programming detail exactly what it needs such a disk to do or perform at a level specifically needed to increase the super computers mission directives of altering our present events so as to effect a different end result at some future end date.

While this may be too hard for many to grasp, but once you understand or begin to think about how certain things are getting done aside from the typical remarks about magic and or demons, these super computers with AI I am certain probably have a personality of sorts and in identifying what disk space it needed based on super computer calculations, only a computer giant and military industrialist like IBM could in effect create the specific item needed by these super computers that are doing all the modeling and giving all the instructions to who knows how many people by means of secure and top secret transmission methods.

As for who specifically controls and manages these computers is an unknown to me, but logic would indicate that you have to go to the richest person in the world and or those closely associated with such a rich group and then you will perhaps begin to understand that such a wild theory, just may be more factual than anyone wants to admit.

This is what I wanted to share about who the secret customer could be and to get there I had to of course explain a few things extra matters that most would not be aware of or have any knowledge about. I thank you for your patience.

Thanks for the thread and thank you for considering these thoughts.

bury that sucker deep underground and it would make a great place to hide your r@ygold/hussyfan collections...

anyhow that is pretty epic in storage, I'd love to turn it into an intermail cluster

I assume the "secret" customer is IBM itself.

Without being disrespectful most theories in this topic are from pseudo IT experts and people with no understanding of how much data is needed for certain operations.

Other option is that it's a client that did not yet got out of a specific deal with a competitor or has an RFP out on some other services.

Originally posted by no special characters
I assume the "secret" customer is IBM itself.

Without being disrespectful most theories in this topic are from pseudo IT experts and people with no understanding of how much data is needed for certain operations.

Other option is that it's a client that did not yet got out of a specific deal with a competitor or has an RFP out on some other services.

I would say that as they are already building this, at considerable cost, the customer is already signed up and paying. There is no way they would build something like this without a signed contract.

As far as some of the other more outlandish theories on this thread - man, it is good to know that as a species we still have such a fabulous immagination. We have had everything from mind dumps to cyber armies to time travel. Wicked - I think you lot should get together and write a sci-fi book, it would be brilliant!

This is for data modeling, not traditinal storage ass you al assume, thisis wy they are using fast disk drives. In my experience, the SSHD I have used (several) in the past were slower than real hard drives when reading data - writing is faster but reading was slower. (This is SSHD drives in company lap tops - I know a big difference, but that is my experience) Therefore to get the best performance for READING - and there will be a lot of reading goinng on, HDs are the best option.

The capacity will indeed be a lot less than reported as already stated due to the working of the RAID system they will use. I can not immage what that is, but they talked about having 3 disk failure redundency accross multiple racks. I would guess this would a multiple level of striped mirrors, which could use up to 50% of the space just for redundency.

RAID level 5 for example which is a striped system (Minimum 3 disks required) data is written in a stripe accross 2 disks with a checksum on the 3rd disk. This way if any one of the 3 fails it can be pullled and the data is still available, nothing gets lost. When a replacement disk is put in the data is rebuilt on it on the fly. In this basic RAID system you therfore loose 30% of your raw disk space. I would expect rather better protection here than just RAID 5 though. lol.

I wonder if it runs off USB.

google adroid is now in the clould game
its a security thing by the sound of it backing up root dns
going to need a mini nuke power plant to run it