Interchangeable Data Storage Bricks?

shokk writes "EWeek is reporting that IBM is working on a concept called Ice Cube Storage Bricks that uses a conductive ceramic or mylar plate to transmit data between bricks across an air gap. Research center staff member Robert Gardner says that the idea is 'to walk up to the system, attach the storage and then walk away.' No mention is made of what happens when a brick in the middle of the cube needs to be replaced and the whole thing needs to be disassembled. To be really effective, this would need to be teamed up with some sort of a backplane, but the tech is new and neat."

Comments

No mention of...

[TechnoLust]

"No mention is made of what happens when a brick in the middle of the cube needs to be replaced and the whole thing needs to be disassembled."

Well, except for where it was specifically mentioned in the article.

The bricks can use cheaper, less reliable components because the failure of a single brick or even several bricks will not shut down or corrupt data in the other bricks, because the data is mirrored in other sections of the array or in backup systems, he said. As a result, defective bricks can stay in place until they are replaced as part of scheduled maintenance, Gardner said.

It's getting bad when the person submitting the story doesn't even RTFA.

Re:No mention of...

[grub]

It's getting bad when the person submitting the story doesn't even RTFA.

Reading the articles goes against the RFC.

Re:No mention of...

[FFFish]

The solution is easy, too: there are three ceramic pads. One merely executes a Towers of Hanoi routine to work one's way down to the defective brick.

IT Jenga game?

[jcostantino]

If you have to replace a block in the middle and the pile collapses, does the server crash and you lose?

Dendrites.

[Anonymous Coward]

"EWeek is reporting that IBM is working on a concept called Ice Cube Storage Bricks that uses a conductive ceramic or mylar plate to transmit data between bricks across an air gap. "

Kind of like a neuron.

Legos

[nizo]

The bricks can be assembled "in a big pile of bricks or it could be a one-dimensional wall of bricks," which could make maintenance even easier.

I knew that playing with legos would come in handy sooner or later.

Ultimate Geek Lego Blocks?

[bchernicoff]

How long before we see sites dedicated to storage array building contests?

Should we worry?

[nizo]

Called CIB (Collective Intelligent Bricks)...

That name for the individual bricks, coupled with the fact the picture they have on the website of the partially constructed collection looks kinda like this is rather disturbing.

Very Tough Error Isolation

[Number44]

Caveat: I'm an employee of IBM's Storage Systems/Technology group, but I'm not working on that particular project. I am only discussing things that were in the previous press releases about this product so you won't get anything confidential out of this post.

The original intent, when this was previewed a year or so ago, was that dead bricks would just stay in there and not require disassembly. See http://www.almaden.ibm.com/StorageSystems/autonomi c_storage/CIB_Hardware/
for some more discussion.

The concern I have (my role in storage systems is error isolation and recovery) is that when you are running all these individual cubes, each one is trying to isolate what might have happened to its peers (or to itself) and when an error starts to propagate from one cube to the next, which it will invariably do sometime, you could end up with multiple cubes saying "IT'S THAT GUY!" and shooting him (ie, cutting him off) when in fact it was yet ANOTHER cube that started the whole thing by corrupting a message and is innocently sitting there not showing any failures.

So assuming that situation occurs, you have 1 failed and 1 not-failed cube which need to be fixed, and shutting off the failed one requires removal, which isn't part of the service model for the product. Needless to say, I'm going to be REALLY impressed when they get this working. My peers at IBM are awesome when it comes to storage, so I'm actually not being sarcastic when I say that.

All in all, it's just a...

[jejones]

...nother brick in the mass storage unit.

Darn. Doesn't scan.

Seems like a solution looking for a problem.

[Yartrebo]

You can already fit about 2TB is a large desktop case. These cubes only store 60GB/cube.

I would rather use loads of desktops, each with a local RAID array. Depending on bandwidth needs, I would either connect them to a common gigabit ethernet router (not so scalable) or set up dedicated routers in a tree heirarchy with larger and larger pipes as you get near the root.

Scalability should not be too much of an issue, and with 10 or so HDDs in a single case, you don't waste too much electricity.

Naturally, they would be running Linux.

Re:Seems like a solution looking for a problem.

[timeOday]

I would rather use loads of desktops, each with a local RAID array.

That's what google does, except they don't bother with (or need) RAID.

Re:Mr. Obvious says...

[Number44]

Wait one damn minute here.

As they say in the army: "If it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid."

We spend billions on research, and only a fraction of the technologies that we invent (yes I am an IBM employee) turn into real products, but that's the whole idea.

Think of copper interconnects. Think of the 'pixie dust'. Think of the Power5 architecture. All of these things are working their way into YOUR badass PC of the future. These weren't the only things we came up with, but our process DID create them.

We must look really far forward and not sit on our laurels, that's a great way to lose the game against our competitors.