Hasta La Gadget!

So, this is pretty… big. At this very moment, researchers at IBM are building the largest data drive ever — a 120 petabyte beast comprised of some 200,000 normal HDDs working in concert. To put that into perspective, 120 petabytes is the equivalent of 120 million gigabytes, (or enough space to hold about 24 billion, average-sized MP3’s), and significantly more spacious than the 15 petabyte capacity found in the biggest arrays currently in use. To achieve this, IBM aligned individual drives in horizontal drawers, as in most data centers, but made these spaces even wider, in order to accommodate more disks within smaller confines. Engineers also implemented a new data backup mechanism, whereby information from dying disks is slowly reproduced on a replacement drive, allowing the system to continue running without any slowdown. A system called GPFS, meanwhile, spreads stored files over multiple disks, allowing the machine to read or write different parts of a given file at once, while indexing its entire collection at breakneck speeds. The company developed this particular system for an unnamed client looking to conduct complex simulations, but Bruce Hillsberg, IBM’s director of storage research, says it may be only a matter of time before all cloud computing systems sport similar architectures. For the moment, however, he admits that his creation is still “on the lunatic fringe.”

IBM developing largest data drive ever, with 120 petabytes of bliss originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Aug 2011 09:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With the Space Shuttle program now boldly going nowhere, it’s up to NASA partners like SpaceX to deliver on the interstellar milestones. Scheduled for a launch on November 30th of this year, the Elon Musk-funded Dragon spacecraft is set to dock for the first time with the International Space Station. The planned cargo delivery is expected to be a watershed moment for the space program, as it will cement the agency’s private-public commercial endeavors, heralding the “beginning of a new era in space travel.” NASA has already given the company conditional approval to merge its two planned test flights — COTS Demo 2 and COTS Demo 3 — into this singular mission, with formal authorization contingent upon the “resolution of any potential risks.” If all goes according to plan later this year, get set to embrace a brave new world of galactic travel — one where Musk ushers us into the stars.

SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft to dock with the ISS later this fall originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Aug 2011 22:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We all know lasers make a “pew pew” sound, but shouldn’t there be a sound effect button for high-speed burning meteors? Well, the US Air Force Space Surveillance Radar in Texas just recorded its own, capturing echoes of the Perseid meteor shower last Friday night. Every year, the Earth orbits directly into a cloud of debris from the Swift-Tuttle comet, which burn up as they fly through the atmosphere at a staggering 133,200 mph. Similar to the sound of a lightsaber slicing through the air, they make some pretty sweet sound effects — perfect for your next auto-tune experiment. Check out the audio with some ISS pics thrown in for good measure after the break.

Continue reading Space radar captures echoes of Perseid meteor shower (video)

Space radar captures echoes of Perseid meteor shower (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Aug 2011 01:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Now there are two reasons to change Apple’s generic OS X 10.7 wallpaper to a custom one: it’s a fake. A professor of physics spotted Apple’s source, which was astrophotographer Robert Gendler’s image of the Andromeda Galaxy. More »

Have $200,000 to spare for a ticket to space? NASA does, apparently, a few times over. Following the retirement of its Space Shuttle program, the US agency just announced two-year contracts with seven space flight companies, worth a combined $10 million. NASA will partner with Virgin Galactic, XCOR, and five other companies to bring engineers, scientists, and equipment to space, for a variety of experiments in low-gravity environments. The contract provides few financial implications for Virgin, which has already collected $55 million in deposits from future space tourists, but the company did acknowledge it as an “important milestone” in its efforts to grow beyond initial consumer offerings. Space Adventures, which serves as a low-cost carrier of sorts in the industry with its $102,000 flight, may be represented as well, through its partner Armadillo Aerospace — so it’s probably safe to assume that NASA won’t be paying two large huge a pop to blast its personnel to space.

Virgin Galactic, XCOR land suborbital contracts with NASA originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Aug 2011 17:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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