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Kevin Rose Load Tests Gmail

Posted by timothy on from the really-pushing-the-envelope dept.

SishGupta writes "Load Testing Gmail - fillmybox@gmail.com A few weeks ago, Kevin Rose of the The Screen Savers decided to load test Google's new email service, Gmail. He asked everyone to email him their favourite 5MB attachments to 'fillmybox@gmail.com.' The test Gmail account is now 102% maxed out. You can read about the test and the results at Kevin Rose.com (his weblog)."

42 of 366 comments (clear)

  1. Slashdot Load Tests Kevin Rose's Web Server by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Bet he wasn't expecting that!

  2. Gmail annoys me by Blymie · · Score: 3, Funny

    I've had little success with GMail's "auto ignore" option. Check this mozilla screengrab out:

    http://etrade.malformed.org/Screenshot.png

  3. Fill your box with what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    With a gmail address of "fillmybox", I wonder what kind of file attachments he received!

  4. That's nothing. by ktakki · · Score: 4, Funny

    Why, just last night I wrote a little program that load tests Google.

    Regards,
    Arthur MyDoom, Jr.

    --
    "In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
  5. 1GB = 1024MB so... by Compholio · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... since Google advertises the service as 1GB of email storage 1023MB is technically under the limit and not 102% of the limit.

    1. Re:1GB = 1024MB so... by Feanturi · · Score: 3, Informative

      The limit as stated on the quota page is 1000MB, not 1GB. That's why he's at 102%.

    2. Re:1GB = 1024MB so... by aaron_ds · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually 1GiB is equal to 1024MiB while 1GB is equal to 1000MB

    3. Re:1GB = 1024MB so... by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Interesting
      The simple fact is that mega means million, and giga means billion. Giga simply does not mean 2^30. Hence, it does not make any sense whatsoever to call 2^30 bytes a gigabyte, any more than it makes sense to call 2^10 bytes a megabyte.

      Why is it so hard for people to admit when they are doing something stupid and correct it? The idea that we should continue doing something simply because it is entrenched is folly at best and is better described as arrogant. I find the idea that we should do something simply because it is the way it has always been done to be absolutely horrific.

      Apparently the moderatorship agrees with you that I am wrong, because they have moderated my comment as flamebait, in spite of an utter lack of intent to flame. I simply want words to have as few meanings as possible. The english language, made up as it is of smatterings of all different languages, is complicated enough without me having to now consider all different possible meanings for a technical lexicon as well, while at the same time trying to retain knowledge of assorted programming languages, operating system commands, and so on. Hence, I attempt to do my part against entropy - it can never be stamped out, but it can be minimized on a local scale.

      Now you probably think (more than before) that I am a wanker. However, we are faced with incontrovertible proof that you are a coward, and as such I will not allow your opinion to bother me more than is required to write this comment.

      I state my assertion once more: mega means one million, 10^6. To try to use the prefix to mean something else, besides the idea of something very large which makes sense given that it is from a greek word meaning "great", is a mistake. To make it try to mean 2^10 is sheer folly. Continuing in this vein, we see that giga means one billion (10^9) and is descended from greek gigas, or "giant", and that tera means 10^12 (one trillion) and is descended from the greek word for monster but none of these words (or parts of words) has a meaning that has anything to do with powers of two. To take a word with a specific meaning, and to assign it a similar but different meaning can not be anything but ridiculous. To attempt to correct such an error might be impossible, but it won't stop me from trying to do what I see as essentially the right and more importantly logical thing. Computers are tools of logic - why encumber the very language with which we describe them with illogic?

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    4. Re:1GB = 1024MB so... by Cody+Hatch · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Um, no.

      The standard prefixes kilo, mega, giga, tera, etc. mean the exact same thing when applied to ANY measure. That's the entire point of a standard, and the standard says 10^3, 10^6, 10^9, and 10^12, respectively.

      The standard prefixes kibi, mebi, gibi, tebi, etc. mean the exact same thing when applied to ANY measure. That's the entire point of a standard, and the standard says 2^10, 2^20, 2^30, and 2^40, respectively.

      To be clear - the value of the SI prefixes do NOT change, no matter what you happen to be measuring. Thats the entire point of the SI system, for crying out loud! People may misuse the units (for example, I've heard people expressing their weight in kilograms, which is obviously absurd), and if you want to communicate with them, you may want to misuse the units in the same fashion, but it doesn't make them RIGHT.

      <gratuitous flamage>
      Let's see - you're arguing that a unit system which is bizarre, contradictory, outdated, and confusing even to its adherents is good, because it sort of mostly works, despite the fact that there is a better and clearer alternative.

      Tell me, what's the weather like in your part of the US? Managed to blow up any launch vehicles recently? :-)
      </gratuitous flamage>

    5. Re:1GB = 1024MB so... by sik0fewl · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The standard prefixes kilo, mega, giga, tera, etc. mean the exact same thing when applied to ANY measure. That's the entire point of a standard, and the standard says 10^3, 10^6, 10^9, and 10^12, respectively.

      Well, they're actually SI prefixes and can't really be applied to any unit of measurement.

      The standard prefixes kibi, mebi, gibi, tebi, etc. mean the exact same thing when applied to ANY measure. That's the entire point of a standard, and the standard says 2^10, 2^20, 2^30, and 2^40, respectively.

      It's a IEC standard, but not a universal standard. If you're an electrical engineer then you might have reason to use them, it's likely to confuse most other people (not that the situation isn't already confusing).

      To be clear - the value of the SI prefixes do NOT change, no matter what you happen to be measuring. Thats the entire point of the SI system, for crying out loud!

      That's right, whenever you apply them to *SI units*. Bytes are *NOT* SI units and kilo, mega, giga, etc are *NOT* SI prefixes when used to measure kilobytes, etc. Sure, they share the same names (the source of all the confusion), but they are not SI units and do not follow SI prefix rules.

      By the way, I actually wouldn't mind kibi/mibi/etc prefixes myself but it would've been a lot nicer if they thought of that *before* using the same prefixes as SI. I think eventually the new naming will takeover, but saying that the current system is bizarre, contradictory and outdated is simply incorrect. However, to say it is confusing hits the nail on the head.

      --
      I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole. - Leo Kessler
    6. Re:1GB = 1024MB so... by 1u3hr · · Score: 3, Informative
      K is a SI unit prefix which stands for kilo which means 1000. Its a standard, it will never change. so 1 KB is 1 * 1000 Bytes. End of Story.

      Correction to Story:
      "K" is the unit of temperature, the Kelvin.
      "k" is the abbreviation for "kilo", 1,000.

    7. Re:1GB = 1024MB so... by Cody+Hatch · · Score: 3, Informative

      The IEC isn't universal? Perhaps, but neither is the ISO. :-) Further, IIRC, the IEC wrote the initial SI standard, and it may have slipped your notice, but we're talking about computers, which is definetly an elec eng topic - and as you yourself state, the IEC is definetly a relevant body for elec eng.

      Further, the IEEE (a very relevent body for this topic) has decided that kilo, mega, etc. always and everywhere refer to their base-10 meanings - even if you're talking about bits and bytes, if you are referring to the base-2 meaning, you must explicitly state this on a case by case basis.

      Further, the IEC standard has recently been submitted to the IEEE (and also to the ISO, although it's not really their area), and is currently being tested as a "trial-use standard" by the IEEE, and is expected to be officially adopted by it sometime next year.

      There is no standard anywhere which defines kilo as 2^10. Kilo, as an SI prefix, is defined to be 10^3. The only prefix defined as 2^10 is Kibi. Well, as far as I'm aware, anyhow. But since the ISO, IEEE, and IEC (which in turn in an umbrella group for the various national standards bodies like ANSI, etc.) all agree on what kilo does and does not mean (and the only groups with an opinion agree on Kibi, I think we're running out of standards groups. If you know of a standard that defines kilo as 2^10, please cite. :-)

      None of which, of course, changes the fact that Joe User uses "megabyte" all the time to refer to 1,048,576 bytes, but since hard disk makers have already switched to calling 10^9 bytes a terabyte, I don't see how using the base-2 prefixes can increase the anger and frustration. :-) (And lets not even talk about floppy disks, where 1.44M = 2^10 * 10^3 bytes...)

    8. Re:1GB = 1024MB so... by maxwell+demon · · Score: 4, Funny

      Well, the most interesting data point still is the "1.44 MB" floppy disk: It has 1.44*1000 "KB", that is, 1.44*1000*1024 Bytes (2 sides * 80 tracks/side * 18 sectors/track * 512 Bytes/sector; the usable space is of course slightly less due to file system overhead). Therefore even with the new binary prefixes (KiB = Kibibytes = 2^10 Bytes, etc.) you have problems: It's neither true 1.44 MB (meaning 1.44*10^6 Bytes), nor 1.44 MiB (meaning 1.44*2^20 Bytes). Maybe the right term would be "1.44 KKiB" (1.44 Kilokibibytes).

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    9. Re:1GB = 1024MB so... by TDRighteo · · Score: 4, Informative

      Already done.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mebibyte

      Unfortunately, this means the standard prefix actually changes for the more "engineering" of the two sizes, and I don't think it has a lot of acceptance.

      1 KiB = 2^10 B
      1 MiB = 2^20 B
      1 GiB = 2^30 B
      etc.

      They are rather fun to say though.

  6. And your point is ? by IanBevan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Mod me down as flamebait if you really must, but what really was the point of this exercise ? I'm sure Google would find it an interesting test -assuming they've not already tried it themselves - but as the author says, he's never actually told anybody at google about it. It just doesn't strike me as particularly constructive...

    --
    Never, ever lose a file again. Ever.
    1. Re:And your point is ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Kevin Rose is a wannabe hacker (or cracker, whatever term you want to use) who tries to portray himself as a technology guru. This is simply another stunt to make him look cool in the eyes of script kiddies. Sad really...

  7. The best way to load test... by strredwolf · · Score: 4, Funny

    is to let everyone on Slashdot have an account, at once.

    --

    --
    # Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
    $Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
  8. greatest moment ever on TSS by aardwolf204 · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...Kevin and co-host of the day finish talking about fillmybox@gmail.com and switch back over to Sarah for the news...

    Sarah: "Fill my box"
    Kevin: "I will later"

    /me ROFL

    Co-host of the day turns red.

    Any words Kevin?

    --
    Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the /.crowd.May ur days b merry & bright & may al
    1. Re:greatest moment ever on TSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yes I was watching when it happened. I'm sure striger or whatever his name is had a talk with him afterwards.

      Kev, Sarah, you guys need to be a little less obvious about your love life on air, either that or rig the playboy contest so sarah wins. that thing still going on?

  9. Fill My Box? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Haven't heard that from the wife in ages!

    Thanks, folks, I'll be here all week! Tip your waitresses!

    1. Re:Fill My Box? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's odd. I hear it from her almost every day.

  10. Next step, try the spam filters by sssmashy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I received over 2,000 complaints from people who actually took the time to dig around and find my personal email address, I'm thinking we hit Gmail with around 50-75,000+, 5MB+ emails in a 10-15min window.

    Think of all the spam that one of these accounts could hold. I propose testing Gmail's spam filters next: disseminate your Gmail addy to porn sites, and everywhere else it will likely be harvested by a spam bot. Sit back, and let the spam roll in. It should be interesting to see just how fast this sucker fills up with ads for penis enlargers.

    1. Re:Next step, try the spam filters by Motherfucking+Shit · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Think of all the spam that one of these accounts could hold.
      I set up a Gmail account just over a month ago (on June 23rd). After I used it for a couple of test messages with friends, I set up a few of my most spammed email accounts to forward to Gmail. As of now, I have 67497 spam messages, using 360 MB (36%) of my 1000 MB.

      Gmail has gotten better at catching spam on its own, but it's not great yet. I use SpamAssassin and score anything over 6.1 as spam. Gmail sends stuff with scores as high as 8 straight to my inbox. Granted, it's easy to set up a system that works for me; it's hard to set up a system that works for everyone.

      One thing I've found really interesting is the ability to instantly search through 67,000+ spams! It's amazing how prolific the "random words to defeat Bayesian filters" spam tactic has gone. Just about every word I've tried appears somewhere within the contents of 67,000 spams...

      Search results for: in:anywhere anthropomorphic 1 - 20 of about 80

      Search results for: in:anywhere antagonistic 1 - 20 of about 150

      Search results for: in:anywhere necromancy 1 - 20 of 61

      Search results for: in:anywhere juxtaposition 1 - 20 of 58

      Search results for: in:anywhere loquacious 1 - 20 of 51

      It's crazy. I wasted a few minutes last week searching through my Gmail spam archive trying to find a word that didn't appear anywhere, and came up with very few successes. If nothing else, Gmail is probably the world's biggest and most accurate archive of spam.
      --
      "BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
  11. huh huh uh huh huh by gwoodrow · · Score: 5, Funny

    [beavisandbutthead]

    uh huh huh
    uh huh huh
    "fill my box"
    uh huh huh

    [/beavisandbutthead]

  12. Re:false advertising, and email wars by Quill_28 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    >24 megabytes is a substantial difference for most email users.

    It is if you have 10MB or 100MB,
    but not when you have 1000 megabytes.

    100K of memory was alot when all you had was 640K, but 100k is nothing to most users nowadays.

  13. Re:Whoah by Kris_J · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I can tell you that the theory is realistic, having run several compressed filesystems and generally having an interest in (transparent) compression, but I can't say if it's correct. It sounds a little wrong as it's fairly easy to say "no, don't try to compress files with extension X because it won't work". More likely Gmail choked on the decoding of attachments -- as you wouldn't store them in a wasteful 7-bit format.

    I hammered my own gmail account by forwarding up all my old messages using an Eudora filter. I was sending as many as 2,000 messages in a 15 minute period at one stage. While Gmail didn't lock me out, some messages took a particularly long time to appear. These messages were typically old automated receipts, such as eBay messages, that all look very similar but are in fact separate conversations. I'm guessing that there's a lot of overhead when a message arrives to determine if it's related to existing messages.

  14. Goes to 102%.... by vwjeff · · Score: 5, Funny

    The question has finally been answered.

    Why is Gmail the best free webmail?

    ANSWER: Your inbox goes to 102%!!!

    1. Re:Goes to 102%.... by sdo1 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Awesome. Email for Spinal Tap!

      --
      --- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
    2. Re:Goes to 102%.... by nfg05 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually, Hotmail allows you to fill about 110% of your capacity before it actually starts to bounce messages. Right now it's a measly 2 MB, but it should be increased to 250 MB in the next few weeks.

    3. Re:Goes to 102%.... by MikeXpop · · Score: 5, Informative

      While this is funny and all, I'll explain.

      Google offers 1 GB, or 1000 MB, of space. They do this as to not confuse non-tech folk. When you reach 1000 megs, it's 100% full. When you reach the actual limit of 1024 megs, it's 102% full.

      Oh, and back when yahoo had a 4 meg limit, my throway's account would gather up spam and it would stop me at 5 megs, or 125% of the limit. No idea what happens now that it's 100 megs.

      --
      Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
    4. Re:Goes to 102%.... by secolactico · · Score: 4, Funny

      No idea what happens now that it's 100 megs

      One way to find out... post your address and we'll send you our favorite attachements. I have a video of Osama committing suicide that you might find interesting... ;-)

      --
      No sig
  15. If you have kids... by Ieshan · · Score: 4, Funny

    If you have kids named Arthur MyDoom, are you going to stick to the old standard (Arthur MyDoom the 3rd, the 4th, etc), or the new approach - Arthur MyDoom.B, Arthur MyDoom.C, Arthur MyDoom.D...?

  16. Re:false advertising, and email wars by Yolegoman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I doubt that the space is all that the users care about. I was quite content with 5 megs of space until the spam-bots got a hold of my Yahoo account.

    No, the real deal is archiving all of your old email and the ability to search through it all, as well as targeted advertising... I detest picture-advertising... most kinds, that is. pr0n's another story.

    One of the other factors that makes the service so appealing to me is I trust Google, unlike Microsoft or Yahoo, to not sell my email address. When the company who gave you the email address is handing it out to the spammers (or spamming the box themselves), something is wrong.

    - Yolegoman

  17. What a pointless load of tosh! by MarkTina · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What is the point in his test ? Did he think that Google hadn't done any testing at all ? Did he think that if a mailbox hit 100% something dreadful would happen ? Of course it's going to work just fine, 1Mb, 10Mb, 100Mb, 1000Mb or even 10,000Mb is just a tiny dribble in the ocean that is Googles' infrastructure. He's just looking for some kind of kudos ... "Hey dude I filled up my Gmail account!" "Wow! That's so ... so ... actually that's pretty lame .."

  18. Re:Our favorite 5 MB files...? by gricholson75 · · Score: 3, Funny

    porn2.mog

    I'm a .mog, half man, half dog, I'm my own best friend.

  19. Re:false advertising, and email wars by lakeland · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Nobody can read 1GB of text. Therefore the only way to use a gig of email is if either a) it isn't text, or b) you're not actually reading it.

    For instance people getting MPEGs in the mail won't notice the difference between 1000MB and 1024MB. Similarly, people subscribed to a dozen mailinglists, hoping to use google to quickly find any message, won't notice the difference since a few days email will fill up the difference.

    To make it really clear... say you can read 100 text emails a day. Now, if those emails are text they'll be about 5k, or around half a meg a day. So you're talking about six _years_ worth of email before you fill your box, with the extra 24MB getting you an extra month on your six years. For people getting ten text emails a day worth keeping, 1GB will probably hold enough email for life.

  20. Re:conspiracy theories by rnicey · · Score: 4, Informative

    What he thinks is most likely a bunch of rot.

    Decompress a gig on the fly when you login. Please... Do me a lemon.

    The real trick is in the routing for this type of application. When mail is delivered it is switched to a bank of servers which deal with your account (and many others obviously). The messages are indexed and stored.

    When you login there will be a range of load balanced servers routing your read requests back to that same bank of storage from the frontline web servers.

    Limit management is either done in the application logic, or in the database engine. Under load, with simultaneous receipts it's easy to see why you could go over 100% of storage. It's either that or you have to serialize the delivery per user which would suck and be harder.

    It's not a hard concept, but it is tricky to get right in implementation. This is what Google does best though.

  21. The "fill my box" recording: Download by Fog+Dogg · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's the segment from g4techtv captured by me: http://www.members.shaw.ca/fog_dogg_69/fillmybox.w mv

  22. [OT] Why SI rules by Mick+Ohrberg · · Score: 3, Funny

    SI rules. Of course it makes sense to have water freeze at 32 degrees instead of 0, and boil at 212 instead of 100... And why the hell would you want to mess with turning 1 kilometer into 1,000 meters, when you can turn 1 mile into 5,280 feet! And to realize that 1 liter is 1,000 milliliters is stupid, since we can instead make 1 gallon (US, liquid - or 0.86 gallon US dry - or 0.83 gallon UK) into 128 fl.oz. I rest my case.

    --

    Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

    1. Re:[OT] Why SI rules by tarunthegreat2 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Water goes through an unusual expansion between 0 deg and 4 deg celcius, (which is why you have water under a layer of ice)Water is most dense at 4 degrees, and that it why . Anyway, you're totally off on the second and the gram. The SI unit is KILOGram, not gram. , and that is defined by a lump of metal of that weightLink. Also the definition of a metre has been redefined as the distance it takes light to travel in certain amount of time. Finally, the second is defined as the time it takes a certain amount of radioactive material to decay. All links here. Nothing arbitrary about it. And that still doesn't explain how we're better off not using simple measurements like the Kilometre, The Centigrade scale and others.

      --
      My Favourite Meme
  23. stress testing conversations by adpowers · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've done a little bit of my own stress testing. However, I've done it a little bit different. I wanted to see how Gmail handled huge conversations. I e-mailed my brother and we spammed each other back and forth in the same thread, seeing if we could influence the Ads. After a while we started adding more people to the conversation (our current test thread has nine people). We started out by hitting Reply All and saving the quotes from the previous e-mail. It became a huge list of >>> near the bottom and eventually Gmail clipped the messages. After a few hundred replies, opening the thread became slower and slower. When it reached 426 replies, it took me a week to finally get into it. With that I made one last reply and closed the thread. Hey, just out of curiosity, I opened the thread now and it loaded pretty easily. I wonder if they have optimized their behind the scenes engine to make it faster for large conversations. Maybe I'll continue the thread. Also, if you want to be part of the new test thread, just send an e-mail to adpowers@gmail.com.

    Anyway, here is my Gmail stress test.

    Also, you'll notice I have a few mailing lists on the side. I only read the Freenet one, but I subscribed to the Linux Kernel list and some others because I know them to be high traffic. Gmail is pretty impressive and they seem to be optimizing it even more.

  24. What's so abhorrent about clarity? by Kaseijin · · Score: 3, Informative
    Computers use powers of two for every kind of calculation.
    Except when they don't. Binary is dominant, but not universal.
    The most important reason of all to do the measurements this way is because it's easier.
    Sure, as long as we're dealing with binary systems, sometimes binary multiples will be more convenient. They're even more convenient when they're unambiguous.
    It also makes a kind of sense to redefine mega, giga, and tera in terms of base 2 because a byte is a base 2 unit. Why not just go all out when you're using them and make everything else base 2 as well?
    We don't go all out. We use base 10 numbers in front of these "base 2" units. Given a computer with eight-bit bytes, 2^8 would fit the architecture better than 2^10; we use the latter number solely because of its proximity to 10^3. And what about those eight bits? 8 is 2^3, a power of two at least, but an odd one if you'll pardon the pun. Why not 2^2 or 2^4? For that matter, why bytes at all? Because we meatbags need to encode text, and English fits in seven bits plus one for parity. Moreover, even if we were using numbers like 3 and 10 for the computers' sake and not our own, it still would make no sense to confuse the meanings of existing words instead of adopting unambiguous terms.
    You may not that bits, which come out to a nice, round number in every number base, are measured in base 10.
    Except when they aren't. Memory capacity is consistently expressed in binary powers whether using bits or bytes. Most of the networking software I've seen defines a kilobit as 2^10 bits, and some service providers do it too. Expressions of bus speed may depend on the passengers.
    It's too much to ask that a microcontroller that reports usage have half of it's hardware devoted to base conversion, especially when the result may come out to some terrible fraction.
    Bytes are discrete, and an integer in base 2 is an integer in base 10. A report for human eyes usually has the latter, but none of this is relevant to whether you then divide the number by 1000 or 1024 or not at all. If it makes sense to measure something in groups of 2^10, do so, but call it what it is. More to the point, don't call it what it isn't.
    To use your statement, I find that just because people are using mega, giga, and tera with the original meanings just because they're entrenched is folly at best and is better regarded as arrogant.
    It has nothing to do with entrenchment; science and technology demand clarity and accuracy.