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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?"
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?
Vonal Declosion
Its amazing to think that search engine used to run on just that.
Id be interested to see what their current hardware is like.
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 ?
With a hard drive case made of LEGOs and under a dozen computers google managed to become the world's most powerful search tool.
I think those types of setups are familiar to just about anyone that was in the computer arena in the early to mid-nineties. Having random machine without cases, 10 keyboards that may or may not be plugged in, and horrible wiring is probably how many of the top technological companies started. I am sure now it's all properly racked up with labeled cables and a KVM switch, but before the funding, I bet most companies run on old workstations. I thought the lego disk array was appropriate. I wonder what a fire marshal would have to say about their setup.
I think the worst setup I have seen was a previous company I worked for. They had a satellite office that just contained hardware. Well, no one ever went there, and for good reason. It housed quite a bit of old dialup gear, analog dialup gear, complete with external serial 28.8 modems. they were just stacked up all over the place. good thing they thought ahead and got modems with volume knobs, or you would be able to hear each person dialing in. The plastic racks all of the gear was sitting on was so old, it had started cracking and was a hazard to be around. It all worked somehow though. ahh...the good old days.
Why read the article when I can just make up a snap judgement?
I'm no psychologist but I'm pretty sure the simplicity of Google's site design could be an attempt to balance the chaos of their hardware and wiring setup
I love Google and want to have like a million of its babies. I want to print out Google's front page and rub it against my naked body. Actually, I've done it once already, got some nasty paper cuts. But it was worth it.
I LOVE GOOGLE
Here.
For those who are wondering, I happen to own two of the very same machines in the top two pictures lol! They are Dell Poweredge 4200 machines with the logo plates removed! The specs are roughly this:
Dual CPU capable (max 333mhz)
Max RAM 512MB Bios Limit (66mhz EDO SDRAM)
6x80pin SCA drive bays
Dual 700 watt hot swap power supplies
Built in VGA (ATI Mach64 VT 1MB)
For the record, they typically ship with AMI Megaraid 428 (or higher) hardware raid cards. But the onboard SCSI2 is Adaptec AIC-7860 & 7880. Also worth mentioning, they are clusterable using Windows NT. I grabbed these machines off machine and local computer store and have been very stable work horses running Debian! (www.emaildesktop.com).
Just glad to see that these machines were useful in their days!
In case you're having a hard time loading the images from the story, you can find some other images here.
getting some info of google's current hardware in here seems a good idea. here goes.
here is a nice article. The company estimates that a server running Google applications all day is the equivalent of 40 years of use in a regular context. Approximately 82 of these servers die every day, but not completely; Google employs maintenance people who walk around with carts of hard disks, for example, and replace them in malfunctioning servers or UPSes.
now for some pics... damn. can't find them with googleShow a man some news, distract him for an hour. Show a man some mod points, distract him for the rest of his life.
Anyone else see this picture of Sergey in a speed-o? Here is another one of him IN DRAG. I kid you not!
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
Those are not legos! I remember those things from way back when, they're Duplos. They're way bigger than Legos, and they don't cut your foot when you step on them. They're designed so that little kids can't hurt themselves. I never thought I'd see those again.
If someone drops a fort on Will, he makes a reflex save.