Talk about not hacker news; this article is from 2009 and the server is from 2005.
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This is what a Google server looks like (2009)
31–40 of 40 posts
Re: This is what a Google server looks like (2009)
#32"Google has patents on the built-in battery design, "but I think we'd be willing to license them to vendors," Hoelzle said." Can you patent a device you use as part of your business but don't sell? I don't think you could get away with calling it a business practice, and I don't think you could get away with protecting a patent on a device you never try to market.
> Can you patent a device you use as part of your business but don't sell?
Yes; I can't think of any familiar examples offhand, but it happens a lot. As a baby lawyer I wrote a patent application for an automatic pizza-making machine, invented by the owner of a mom-and-pop restaurant, who IIRC never marketed the machine.
> I don't think you could get away with protecting a patent on a device you never try to market.
In the U.S. (and most other industrialized countries AFAIK), the patent laws don't require a patent owner to market, or even try to market, a patented invention. If the patent owner was just trying to keep others out so that no one was using the invention, a court would probably take that into account in determining (i) whether to grant a injunction against further infringement by the defendant and (ii) what a reasonable royalty would be for the defendant's infringement. But that wouldn't affect the validity of the patent itself.
Re: This is what a Google server looks like (2009)
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, totally irrelevant. Today's servers are powered by pixie dust and rainbows instead of batteries and circuit boards. I learned nothing from this article!
I learned from this article the first time it was posted ; I have learned nothing further from the following N reposts. If we allow "new to you" articles on the front page it will be filled with old stuff.
A certain amount of churn is required to continually inform new users. Yes, too much causes the older users to leave from boredom. To little, however, and the newer users cannot gain an appropriate grasp of the common knowledge expected, so references and assumed points will pass them by in conversation.
The other option is the one humans generally end up with. Knowledge barriers between generations. There would need to be different versions of the site every year or two so that new users could go through their learning period uninterrupted, and older users could be secluded to their advanced topics. This makes it harder for older users to educate newer users, and leads to rehashing of debates once closed. The older users will peter out over time, while the newer will waste time spinning wheels they could easily have been advised were explored and pointless.
Complaints are only needed if there is an excess of redundant articles. The occasional rediscussion simply keeps ideas alive and flowing.
Re: This is what a Google server looks like (2009)
#34Old article.
Well you could have linked to the original discussion :) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=542531 I think the link may have changed which is why it got past HackerNews's dupe mechanism.
I believe that the dupe detector only compares against stories in memory, so old links that haven't been loaded in a while will not be caught.
Re: This is what a Google server looks like (2009)
#35Yep. This is old news. But more recently other companies have also decided to implement on-board batteries on their custom servers, most notably Facebook: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/11/27/shoul... And yes, this story was real, despite the April 1 date. I attended the event, and saw the server. It definitely seemed odd to schedule a technology unveiling on April 1, but Google apparently launched…
That's getting kind of sad if we have to flat-out stop using the internet on 4/1 from now on because we can't believe a single page that loads.
I avoid the net on 4/1. It's like every site is taken over by the "Looks like someone's got a case of the Mondays" lady.
Re: This is what a Google server looks like (2009)
#36Yep. This is old news. But more recently other companies have also decided to implement on-board batteries on their custom servers, most notably Facebook: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/11/27/shoul... And yes, this story was real, despite the April 1 date. I attended the event, and saw the server. It definitely seemed odd to schedule a technology unveiling on April 1, but Google apparently launched…
Did Facebook license the Google patent?
Facebook says it is seeking a patent on its own implementation, so apparently not.
Re: This is what a Google server looks like (2009)
#37That's from 2009, I'm sure they've since switched to different motherboards / cpus.
It is much older than 2009. Google released the information in 2009, but at the time said this was a server design "as used a couple years ago".
Re: This is what a Google server looks like (2009)
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the google patent is on their implementation of the battery design not _All_ implementation of built-in battery design.
I don't think Google has it's own battery design.
Why are either of you hypothesizing about publicly available data? Read the patent application yourself: http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Se... .
Re: This is what a Google server looks like (2009)
#39"Google has patents on the built-in battery design, "but I think we'd be willing to license them to vendors," Hoelzle said." Can you patent a device you use as part of your business but don't sell? I don't think you could get away with calling it a business practice, and I don't think you could get away with protecting a patent on a device you never try to market.
There are US companies whose whole business is to own patents and sue companies who, they claim, infringe upon them.
Re: This is what a Google server looks like (2009)
#40So given the amount of research that Google pump into getting the best components for the job, are we to take it that all their testing has concluded Hitachi hard disks are better than the alternatives? http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.html
"Hitachi manufacturers the safest and most reliable hard drives, according to the Storelab study. Of the more than 200 Hitachi hard drives received, not a single one had failed due to manufacturing or design errors."
Study: A Look At Hard Drive Reliability In Russia (August 13, 2010) http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hdd-reliability-storelab...
// WD and especially Seagate (Barracuda 7200.11 had major firmware problems) failed miserably. 500Gb or bigger drives were the worst for all manufacturers. Samsung was almost as good as Hitachi.
"Storelab notes that read/write head failure is somewhat characteristic for WD drives. Failures primarily occur as a result of physical impact or overheating (WD heads can be sensitive at temperatures above 45°C). Western Digital's construction makes drives particularly vulnerable to shocks and pressure. Unlike other manufacturers, WD does not secure the hard drive axle with a separate screw to the drive cover. "