Google's Early Hardware

revjonnylove writes "Ever wonder what Google's early hardware looked like? Well, wonder no more. Thanks to Archive.org's Way Back Machine, we can all bask in the glory of Google's home made HDD cases, constructed partially of Lego, as well as other neat-o toys. Is that a PowerPC logo I see on one of their servers?"

Comments

Not bad!

[CptChipJew]

There are 9 9Gdrives between the two machines...The left box has 3 9G drives, and there are 6 4G drives on the right...This IBMdisk expansion box has another 8 9G drives...This is our homemade disk box which contains 10 9G SCSI drives

294 GB? That's a pretty damn nice mostly donated setup for 1997. This was '97 right?

Its amazing...

[sailor420]

Its amazing to think that search engine used to run on just that.

Id be interested to see what their current hardware is like.

It give us hope

[thammoud]

us pee ons that we can still create something very special with almost nothing but scrapped together hardware. Who said that we need millions to implement great ideas ?

Re:It give us hope

[black mariah]

They were at college. They probably called up the guy at IBM that handles giving shit out and said "Hey, IBM Giving Shit Out Dude, give some shit to us." Or something to that effect. If you're doing some kind of research I'm sure IBM and most other companies would be willing to cut you a deal or donate hardware to your project.

Amazing!

[Anonymous Coward]

With a hard drive case made of LEGOs and under a dozen computers google managed to become the world's most powerful search tool.

Hey

[Anonymous Coward]

We all had to start somewhere right?

I remember those 9Gig drives when new

[shoppa]

I remember when those 9 Gig drives were new. Street price was $4000 or $5000 each.

Last time I checked, those same model drives were listing for $5 on E-bay but not selling... it'd cost way more to ship them.

Google hardware

[TrentL]

Oh. I thought you were going to talk about this.

Any recent photos?

[lyberth]

How does it look today?
how do they manage the wirering to all those servers today?

Re:That's not lego

[sbaker]

It's not even Duplo - it's some kind of cheesey clone.

Re:Blarg

[Slack3r78]

The fact that Google started as a research project at Stanford probably didn't hurt.

Re:Slashdot.... back in 1997

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that sad? You can read this page can't you? It works doesn't it? No need to update. Simply no need.

Please /. don't come up with some god-awful CSS nerd-style site!

Thanks.

Re:Slashdot.... back in 1997

[Bake]

As others have pointed out before me, there is quite a lot of bandwidth to be saved for Slashdot to switch over to a CSS based web. The content will be MORE ACCESSIBLE TO OTHER DEVICES. It'll actually have a better chance of getting validated as anything. Right now it doesn't even rank good enough to validate as HTML 3.2*.

Why do you consider CSS "god-awful" as you put it? Is it because you can't grok it, or are you the type that would prefer a compiler that assumes when statements end and puts in its own end-of-statement marker instead of doing the right thing and bitch about it in the compiler output?

*It would appear that the powers that be here on Slashdot aren't too happy with people trying to validate the site as the W3c validator received a HTTP 403, Denied from slashdot.org

It's LEGO DAM IT, not LEGOs!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but I'm a LEGO NAZI...

LEGO has no need for an "s" on the end, even if there is 230 Ga-Billion blocks! (Ga-Billion is infinity +1 in case you were wondering)

Re:It's LEGO DAM IT, not LEGOs!!!!!

[UserGoogol]

Lego can both be used as a mass noun, or to refer to the individual bricks. I like the sound of Lego as a mass noun, because I like mass nouns in general, but the usage as Lego as Lego Brick is a generally accepted part of Engilsh.

But yes, there is no need for the 's'. And I really think that when you spell it LEGO you must be refering to the mass noun version, because LEGO is only spelt that way when bowing to the wishes of the trademark holder, and the trademark holder also wishes that people use it exclusively as a mass noun. So if you are going to say LEGOs, you should spell it legos.

Re:Gmail

[catbutt]

Its not singular and plural at the same time, it's like the words "water" and "stuff", which are neither. If you want to refer to an individual piece, you should say something like "a lego block".

BTW, since I have mod points today, I almost modded you down for saying "repeat after me", but decided to reply instead.

Re:Gmail

[kEnder242]

Finally! I agree, just didn't know how to say it. The link says it all.

The issue isn't about Legos, its that the English language (or any language) is constantly changing.
Any language that doesn't is dead (e.g. Latin).

Re:Gmail

[Uber Banker]

No it's not acceptable.

To equate this to an evolution of language shows your retardation in general communication.