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IBM Developing Lego-like Storage Brick

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the don't-play-with-the-storage dept.

AaronW writes "According to this story at EE Times IBM is developing a 32TB storage system built around blocks that can be stacked like Lego bricks. Apparently they will be connected in a 3x3x3 mesh using capacitive coupling and will be water cooled."

3 of 181 comments (clear)

  1. Clever naming by Crag · · Score: 5, Funny

    "IBM's Ice Cube project aims to define a way for end users to easily maintain increasing amounts of data, while also plowing ground for a similar approach to computing systems."

    Ice Cube? Lemme guess: They sell a bandwidth package for Internet hosting called "Ice T"

    Their bandwidth monitoring and packet sniffer is called "Snoop Dog."

    Oh wait...IBM's PS/2 had the MCA bus. Maybe that was a Beastie Boys reference. Maybe IBM has been into Rap and the like for a long time...

  2. Ice Cube - Cube Failure by JoeSmack · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm glad they finally announced this project I've been dying to talk about it. I talked to a researcher on this project while I was at IBM's Almaden Research Center.

    I was blown away when they described it to me. I have to say that IBM is by far the greatest computer techonology research company. They take the top minds give them boat loads of money, ten years later they blow your mind with the completely innovative technology. I mean come on, cube storage?!?!

    Too bad, they just can't make any inroads in the client side market. They invented the harddrive years ago and today they aren't going to even make any more client models.

    Anyhow, I just wanted to talk about cube failures. Ice cube uses a 3x3x3 array of 27 cubes. But, the question is what happens if a cube goes bad. Essentially, you can never turn off Ice Cube. It's meant to be continuously running. If a single cube failure occurs the system just routes around it. To compensate you can stick more cubes on the outside. Of course, throughput will be hampered.

    I asked the researcher what happens if say all the middle cubes burn out or when the throughput gets too damaged. He responds, "Well, given the failure rate, it probably won't be an issue until about ten years have passed, and by then we'll have much more powerful storage technology."

    Finally, anything that is water-cooled is nifty in my book.

    1. Re:Ice Cube - Cube Failure by BCoates · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I asked the researcher what happens if say all the middle cubes burn out or when the throughput gets too damaged. He responds, "Well, given the failure rate, it probably won't be an issue until about ten years have passed, and by then we'll have much more powerful storage technology."

      Since the entire system is supposed to be fault-tolerant, if you wanted to reclaim some of the space/performance from the dead cubes, you could just start removing cubes from one end, throw away (or salvage, whatever) the dead ones, and then stick the still-functioning ones back on the other end, wait for them to sync back into the network, and repeat.

      Of course, instead of growing, the whole unit would now have a tendency to migrate across the room...

      --
      Benjamin Coates