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How Facebook Stores Billions of Photos

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the laser-printer-and-a-warehouse-i-figure dept.

David Gobaud writes "Jason Sobel, the manager of infrastructure engineering at Facebook, gave an interesting presentation titled Needle in a Haystack: Efficient Storage of Billions of Photos at Stanford for the Stanford ACM. Jason explains how Facebook efficiently stores ~6.5 billion images, in 4 or 5 sizes each, totaling ~30 billion files, and a total of 540 TB and serving 475,000 images per second at peak. The presentation is now online here in the form of a Flowgram."

20 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Photos? You mean people use FB for photos too? by denzacar · · Score: 5, Funny

    I thought it was created just so that you could have all your spam and silly forwards in one place.

    --
    Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
    1. Re:Photos? You mean people use FB for photos too? by snowraver1 · · Score: 5, Funny

      I find it funny that you start by defending FaceBook from the following statement:
      I thought it was created just so that you could have all your spam and silly forwards in one place.

      Then proceed to futher prove the GP post by saying:
      The best thing I can compare it to is AOL

      --
      Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. This comment may not be copied in any way including, but not limited to caching.
    2. Re:Photos? You mean people use FB for photos too? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Fortune 500 companies could probably learn a thing or two...

      Hey now! I work at a Fortune 500 company and we resemble that remark!
    3. Re:Photos? You mean people use FB for photos too? by hostyle · · Score: 4, Funny

      Me too!

      Not everyone prides themselves on using a 'cool' isp.

      --
      Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
    4. Re:Photos? You mean people use FB for photos too? by STrinity · · Score: 2, Funny

      That's Digg -- "Hey look at this cool link I found."

      Facebook is where you spam your friends with pointless messages about how you've hurled a squirrel at them.

      --
      Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
    5. Re:Photos? You mean people use FB for photos too? by PatrickThomson · · Score: 2, Funny

      I totally agree with you about how having friends on facebook is highly offensive and joining it will lead to identity theft and involuntary permanent incarceration in guantanamo bay. My neighbour tried to give facebook fake details, and mark zuckerberg showed up and stabbed him in the eye.

      --
      I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
  2. I dunno. by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Funny

    But seeing as how this just got posted and already it's Slashdotted, I'll bet it's not the same way Flowgram stores its presentations.

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    My blog
    1. Re:I dunno. by IRGlover · · Score: 5, Funny

      I bet UK productivity rocketed this afternoon then ;-)

    2. Re:I dunno. by owlnation · · Score: 4, Funny

      And nothing of value was lost.

      In other news, companies in the UK reported record productivity this afternoon.

  3. How X Stores Billions of Photos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ohhhh boy, queue the pr0n jokes in 3... 2... 1...

  4. he has a premium acct... by OglinTatas · · Score: 4, Funny

    at Flickr

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    More music, fewer hits
  5. FLASH?! by T-Bone-T · · Score: 3, Funny

    "You either have javascript turned off or you have an older version of Adobe Flash."

    That was an informative article but I didn't see anything about Facebook. At least there weren't ads and they kept it to one page!

    1. Re:FLASH?! by Murpster · · Score: 2, Funny

      Bwaaahh! You damn kids and your newfangled Flash! All I need is Lynx. Now get offa my lawn!

  6. Slashdotted by Rik+Sweeney · · Score: 5, Funny

    Does anyone see the irony in Flowgram's demonstration?

    Flowgram Guy 1: "OK, this is how Facebook stores billions of photos and serves thousands of them each second"
    Flowgram Guy 2: "Cool, maybe we should implement that technology"
    Flowgram Guy 1: "Why? It's not as if we're ever going to have our servers swamped with thousands of requests..."

    --
    Summation 2
    1. Re:Slashdotted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Get the latest version. I'm a problem solver.

  7. The peak is a paltry 0.45e6/s? by vigmeister · · Score: 3, Funny

    Let's all go look at pictures on fb from 12 noon EST to 12:05 EST. That ought to show them...

    I 3 Myspace hunni!

    Cheers!

    --
    Atheist: Buddhist in a Prius
  8. Flowgram slashdotted? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Flowgram serving 475000 /. users flawlessly , now that would be impressing.

  9. Looks like beta.flowgram.com should be by sdsurfgeek · · Score: 2, Funny

    alpha.flowgram.com

  10. Next paper by apillowofclouds · · Score: 5, Funny

    Next article, how to effectively serve a Flowgram that's referenced on Slashdot

  11. How Facebook Stores Billions of Photos? by electricbern · · Score: 3, Funny

    Simple: 70 thousand pen drives.

    --
    alias possession='chmod 666 satan && ls /dev > il && tail daemon.log'