Conclusion from Google: Memory Chips More Unreliable Than Previously Believed
October 9, 2009 by Rico Mossesgeld
Filed under Trends
Over the last two-and-a-half years, search engine giant Google analyzed the performance of the thousands of computers it uses for its own data centers. The surprising trend? Based on real-world data, Google concluded that the error rates of memory chips are higher than previously believed. Much much higher:
How many errors? On average, about one in three Google servers experienced a correctable memory error each year and one in a hundred an uncorrectable error, an event that typically causes a crash.
Older research showed that, for every 1 billion hours, a memory chip would fail on average around 200 to 5,000 times. …read more
Researcher: 350GB Approximate Needed to Store Entire Life Experience
September 28, 2009 by Rico Mossesgeld
Filed under Storage, Trends
According to Gordon Bell, a researcher from Microsoft, the average human’s life requires approximately 350GB worth of data storage. This estimate was made during a Q&A as part of an article featuring his work, which basically involves storing every waking moment for digital posterity.
Personally, that seemed like a really low figure to me. “Only” 350GB to encompass the entire sum of our life experiences? Then again, if 3G users only consume around 211MB a month, and the average daily traffic of the internet is “mere” terrabytes (or thousands of gigabyes), then the figure makes sense. The amount of information we …read more
