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NSA Utah Data Center Blueprints Reveal It Holds Less Than Thought

Posted by samzenpus on from the where-your-name-goes dept.

cold fjord writes "Break out the tin foil hats, and make them double thick. Forbes reports, 'The NSA will soon cut the ribbon on a facility in Utah ... the center will be up and running by the "end of the fiscal year," ....Brewster Kahle is the engineering genius behind the Internet Archive,... Kahle estimates that a space of that size could hold 10,000 racks of servers .... "So we are talking $1 billion in machines." Kahle estimates each rack would be capable of storing 1.2 petabytes of data. ... all the phone calls made in the U.S. in a year would take up about 272 petabytes, ... If Kahle's estimations and assumptions are correct, the facility could hold up to 12,000 petabytes, or 12 exabytes – ... but is not of the scale previously reported. Previous estimates would allow the data center to easily hold hypothetical 24-hour video and audio recordings of every person in the United States for a full year. The data center's capacity as calculated by Kahle would only allow the NSA to create archives for the 13 million people living in the Los Angeles metro area. Even that reduced number struck Internet infrastructure expert Paul Vixie as high given the space allocated for data in the facility. ... he came up with an estimate of less than 3 exabytes of data capacity for the facility. That would only allow for 24-hour recordings of what every one of Philadelphia's 1.5 million residents was up to for a year. Still, he says that's a lot of data pointing to a 2009 article about Google planning multiple data centers for a single exabyte of info. '" Update: 07/25 16:33 GMT by T : For even more, see this story.

6 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. Saving face by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Expect more articles like this that downplay the scale of the NSA.

    1. Re:Saving face by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This was submitted by cold fjord, Slashdot's resident neo-con who supports waterboarding, said the Iraq war was "worth it", and said Bradley Manning deserved to be tortured for 'faking' feeling suicidal. What do you expect?

      Oh, and this facility will "only allow for 24-hour recordings of what every one of Philadelphia's 1.5 million residents was up to for a year". It is convenient that the article fails to mention that this is only one facility out of a dozen or so.

    2. Re:Saving face by Anachragnome · · Score: 5, Interesting

      "Expect more articles like this that downplay the scale..."

      Downplay the scale? We haven't even seen the drawings for the below-ground facilities.

      But, seriously. From the article...

      "...and that the sheer size of the data centers in Utah and elsewhere suggests that the agency wants to vacuum up everything it can..."

      That's my emphasis--plural. There are more then one of these centers. Take a look at the layout of the Utah Data Center article at Wikipedia.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center

      Does that building layout look anything like the one at the top of the linked Forbes article? The picture of the buildings and the layout right above are a match in the Wikipedia article, yet they don't match the plans in the Forbes article.

      So where is this data center that Forbes has the plans to? They're obviously not the same.

    3. Re:Saving face by Charliemopps · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sorry, I dunno if you're a spy or anything... not like it really matters, but dudes right. You're spending ALL day EVERY day spewing pro-NSA propaganda. I doubt you're actually a professional at this otherwise you'd have other posts to diffuse your agenda. Instead I think you're just a pro-government ass-hat that works 3rd shift and has little to do all night. Just keep in mind, your ability to post anonymously like this will someday be gone, and you can think back to how you helped make that happen.

      The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.

      - Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, Paris, 13 Nov. 1787

  2. Re:Big disappointment by cervesaebraciator · · Score: 5, Funny

    Which, oddly enough, is located in British Columbia. They picked the site because the surrounding countryside coincidentally resembles every habitable planet in the galaxy.

  3. It's not a conspiracy, it's a boondoggle. by Black+Parrot · · Score: 5, Funny

    "NSA Utah" is an anagam for "anus hat".

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade