Facebook Experimenting With Blu-ray As a Storage Medium 193
s122604 links to CNN's explanation of what may be the future of cold (or at least lukewarm) storage at Facebook, which is experimenting with massive arrays of Blu-Ray discs for seldom-accessed user files. Says the report: The discs are held in groups of 12 in locked cartridges and are extracted by a robotic arm whenever they're needed.
One rack contains 10,000 discs, and is capable of storing a petabyte of data, or one million gigabytes.
Blu-ray discs offer a number of advantages versus hard drives. For one thing, the discs are more resilient: they're water- and dust-resistant, and better able to withstand temperature swings. Their data can be restored more quickly, and they're easier to transport.
Most important, though, is cost. Because the Blu-ray system doesn't need to be powered when the discs aren't in use, it uses 80% less power than the hard-drive arrangement, cutting overall costs in half.
Re:Right to be forgotten? (Score:3, Funny)
Can I ask Facebook to delete my stuff from one of those (assuming I had a Facebook account in the first place)
You can ask, yes.
There's just one problem with this... (Score:5, Funny)
When you first access this data, you have to sit through 42 previews before you get to it.
Re:Why not just use hard drives and then store... (Score:5, Funny)
This is a company who's product stack is written in PHP.