On Fri, 25 Nov 2005 15:14:20 +0100, "hackbox.info"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>On Fri, 25 Nov 2005 14:27:08 +0100, Yousuf Khan <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> hackbox.info wrote:
>>> On Fri, 18 Nov 2005 22:27:48 +0100, Yousuf Khan <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>>
>>>> We're talking about 5000 Opteron processors and 3.5 petabytes of disk
>>>> storage that can be dropped-off overnight by a tractor-trailer rig.
>>> no, "we are talking 5000 Opteron processors and 3.5 petabytes of
>>> disk storage" overall - now it makes sense
>>>
>>
>> Wouldn't that many processors and disks be able to fit inside the space
>> of a truck trailer? Especially when the trailer is refrigerated?
>
>can you imagine that? because I cant
>
>Length of semi-trailer used in a commercial tractor-semi-trailer
>combination 53'-0"
>Height (of all vehicles) 13'-6" (minus the wheels = 10')
>Width (except municipal bus or traction engine) 8'-6"
>
>I'm a metric guy, so 16 x 3 x 2.5 = 120m3
>
>U8 Box with 16TB and quad Opterons 19"(W) x 27"(D) x 14"(H)
>0.48 x 0.68 x 0.35 =1.1m3
>
>Lets assume we can fit 100 of those boxes, that gives us 1.6 petabytes and
>400 Opterons
>Whole "Google probably has between two and five petabytes altogether"
>(April 06, 04)
You can pack chips MUCH more densely than that. Given that they are
going for high density, the first place I would look would be
something like HP's BL35p Blade servers. You can fit 16 blades, each
with 2 dual-core Opterons, into a 6U enclosure. With power supplies
for all the blades you can easily get 6 enclosures per 19" and fit
well within the height confines of your tractor.
Now figure that your 19" racks are a bit over 50cm wide and 75cm deep,
you can pack in 30 of them along each side of the truck, leaving 25cm
in the back for cabling and a 50cm aisle down the middle for someone
to walk between them. No figure 26 racks for blade servers:
26 x 6 x 16 = 2,496 servers
Each server can hold 2 dual-core Opteron chips for a total of 4,992
processors (close enough to 5000 for my counting). Now lets figure on
the other 4 racks for networking equipment, redundancy, control, etc.
etc. That still leaves us with a full 30 racks for storage. Now,
getting 3.5 Petabytes of storage into 30 racks is still going to be
quite a challenge, but it's probably do-able. I did a quick search
through HP's website after checking out the blades above, and it seems
like their storage products could pretty easily get you up to at least
1.5 petabytes in that space.
Ohh, and all these calculations are assuming only 48U racks, which are
about 225cm tall, leaving you about 75cm at the top for your cooling
and venting.
Anyway, long story short, I would say that it is indeed very possible
that Google IS packing all that computing power into a single
transport trailer. It's not an easy task and it DEFINITELY is not
cheap, but I would say that it's possible with what's out there today.
For some references on the blade servers config, see here:
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/s...35p/index.html
And in particular, page 15 here:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/su.../c00301687.pdf
This shows a 42U rack with 5 blade enclosures, though 6 should be
possible with the same setup in a 48U enclosure (3 enclosures per
dual-power pack). As you can probably guess, the power requirements
of such a setup would be absolutely prodigious! (I count ~ 750KW for
the blade servers alone, and probably nearly as much for the hard
drives). However assuming you have your own power substation, it
could probably be done.
-------------
Tony Hill
hilla <underscore> 20 <at> yahoo <dot> ca
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