Ext3 for large filesystems

Posted Jun 15, 2006 15:29 UTC (Thu) by smoogen (subscriber, #97)
Parent article: Ext3 for large filesystems

Actually large amounts of cluster systems seem to run into the 4TB file size and 8TB file limit these days. We had a project that needed approximately of 32 Petabytes for its raw data. I thought it was outlandish, but then got a couple of requests for 2 Petabyte systems for genome research.

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Ext3 for large filesystems

Posted Jun 15, 2006 16:58 UTC (Thu) by jzbiciak (guest, #5246) [Link] (2 responses)

Well, if storage requirements double every 18 months, then 1024 PB will be enough to hold them for just shy of a decade, then. :-)

Ext3 for large filesystems

Posted Mar 20, 2007 16:24 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (1 responses)

I think I've thrown out the 64 Megabyte 3.5 inch hard disks I bought in the early 80's. It doesn't feel that long ago.

Ext3 for large filesystems

Posted Mar 20, 2007 16:35 UTC (Tue) by jzbiciak (guest, #5246) [Link]

It still amazes me that a single desktop icon on a modern computer takes up about as much RAM as an entire video game console had back in the 80s.

64MB in the early 80s? Those must have cost a pretty penny. I remember 5MB and 10MB disks costing several hundred dollars.

Petabytes

Posted Jun 24, 2006 17:39 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (2 responses)

If you could expand on your post, I'm very curious about it. 2 Petabytes? 32 Petabytes? Where do you store that kind of information? For ther former you would need something like 2048 teraservers, just the power requirements are scary. How do you back it all up?

Petabytes

Posted Oct 15, 2006 15:55 UTC (Sun) by knan (subscriber, #3940) [Link]

"For ther former you would need something like 2048 teraservers" ... or a few modern SAN storage arrays. There are 500TB off-the-shelf solutions available, and I'm sure the manufacturers will be happy to sell you bigger custom variants.

Petabytes

Posted Oct 15, 2006 21:32 UTC (Sun) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

actually, you can get a petabyte of storage for ~$2m off-the-shelf that fits in ~4 racks consuming ~30KW of power

buy 40 Sun x4500 servers ( http://store.sun.com/CMTemplate/CEServlet?process=SunStor... ) each with 24TB storage, 2 dual-core opterons, and 16G ram

so 2PB of storage are $4m in 8 racks (80 servers) consuming ~60KW. that's not too scary (although it is quite a bit)

backups are an issue, my guess is that the backup is mirroring to another similar set.