Storing The Web in RAM

Fascinating and detailed post about Google’s datacenter, now 100,000 servers strong. “One imagines the old ENIAC technician running up and down the isles of Google’s data center with a shopping cart full of spare disk drives instead of vacuum tubes.” I didn’t realize that Google’s “Snippets” service requires them to store the entire web in RAM. Speculation about the ultimate capabilities of such an unimaginably huge cluster computer. A commenter wonders “How many servers would you need to emulate the human brain?”

Thanks Ludovic.

Music: Dils :: Mr. Big

One Reply to “Storing The Web in RAM”

  1. Man, if that thing becomes intelligent we’re all dooooomed!

    -or-

    If it became infected by a proprietary virus we’d all be dooooomed!

    It’s the Borg.

    I somehow feel very, very, small working on my G3 iMac with 1GB of RAM.

    The images of the operators running around this giant hive maintaining the machine reminds me of a species of trophical ant that does its own farming — swarming over its harvest maintaining/feeding in a giant coordinated mass.

    Very cool.

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