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back to article Reg snaps moment when Facebook turned air Blu: 1PB box for unloved pics

Facebook has developed an archive storage system that uses Blu-ray discs to stuff a petabyte into a single cabinet. The as-yet-unnamed 42U box was revealed at the Open Compute Summit in San Jose, California, on Tuesday. Facebook's chief of infrastructure engineering Jay Parikh said the social networking giant plans to publish …

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  1. ~mico
    Joke

    A more appropriate name...

    Given it's developed for Facebook, and is used for backup, I would call it FaceLift.

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  2. ~mico
    Joke

    If used primarily for offline storage, however...

    Then, FaceOff.

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  3. Grumpy Fellow
    Thumb Up

    Missing the tactile joy

    I'm not into tape nowadays, but in the 80s and 90s there was nothing more satisfying from a tactile standpoint than threading a nine track tape onto a tape drive with mechanical tensioning, starting the tape on the takeup reel with a couple of spins, then hitting the "Load" button and seeing it balance the loops and find the start of the tape. The most exciting tape of the year was the one that brought back the latest goodies from DECUS of course. A nerd could feel cool walking down the hall in sneakers while spinning the tape reel in hand and catching it after exactly one revolution. Brings tears to my eyes. Jay doesn't know what he is missing.

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    1. Admiral Grace Hopper
      Reply Icon

      Re: Missing the tactile joy

      A tactile joy indeed, and handling tape reels always had its own soundtrack.

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  4. Herby

    The 2014 version

    Of the IBM data cell.

    Of course it will probably be more successful. The IBM data cell was terrible, and with the failures, nobody wanted it AT ALL.

    Data everywhere!

    Please note: Peta="People Eating Tasty Animals"!

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  5. dssf

    Fortunately, and gratifyingly

    It was "than use chopsticks", not "then use chopsticks", hehehehe..

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Fortunately, and gratifyingly

      Nah, that'd just make it a stab in the dark.

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  6. Natalie Gritpants

    Keep clear of this in the data center

    Looks like that front vertical section goes in and out and would probably go right across the alleyway. And it all goes into one bluray drive, hope that's a ruggedized one that can handle the load cycles.

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  7. Christoph

    But the data is already stored

    How long would it take to retrieve the data from the NSA's copy?

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  8. hippiegunnut

    Burying old data: Faceplant?

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  9. RichyRich

    1PB !!?

    Utterly amazing - 1PB ! - amazing piece of kit

    Everyone will have one of these in their garage one day....

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    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: 1PB !!?

      Not if the MPAA find out

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    2. PracticalApplications
      Reply Icon

      Re: 1PB !!?

      1PB in 42U is nothing spectacular. The article missed the main point of the solution.

      It's 1PB with almost zero POWER!!!

      One can quite easily stuff 3+PB into a 42U cabinet with COTS solution, but it takes 2+kW of Power to do that. Facebook faces (sic!) a problem that most companies won't: WORN (write once, read never)... i.e. the multitudes of drooling slobs taking selfies that auto-upload to their favourite social drama website.

      XOXOXO to the fans

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  10. Nasty Nick

    50 years life - really?

    What is the basis for that claim? Given the variable track record of long term recordable CD storage, isn't that rather hopeful?

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  11. Paul Crawford Silver badge

    Deleted profiles?

    So if you delete your profile, and even if the EU rules that it has to be removed, what happens to the read-only disks?

    Will they remove and destroy them?

    Oh stupid me! Why did I think they might do something for the user (er, product)?

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    1. Gerardo McFitzpatrick-O'Toole
      Reply Icon

      Re: Deleted profiles?

      I suspect they would do something like encrypt every fragment of data with a different key, then delete the relevant key if they were forced to.

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  12. russtystorage

    1 PB, as if that is somehow impressive? Also "Zero power." really, ever heard of tape? Google and Amazon both use tape for several reasons, it works. Nearly every company developing Optical technologies for the enterprise has exited the market. There are consumer optical technologies, such as DVD / Blu-Ray, but they do not have enterprise reliability or price / performance characterstics.

    Tape has outgrown its effectiveness as a primary backup / retention media. However, for long term retention, with high density and proven reliability, it is hard to beat. Look up specs for SpectraLogic, Oracle/STK, HP, IBM or other tape libraries. It is quite possible to get 25 PB in one, 40U rack with current tape technologies. Optical has never had better density, price / performance levels than competing magnetic technologies. Perhaps someday, but 2014 is not that year.

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