>> For details of Fermi labs data capacity, you might check their
>>website www.fnal.gov. On my last tour there I think they said
>>they have 40 Terabytes disk space and 400 TBytes of robotic tape
>>storage. Sony will sell you a standard product the "PetaSite"
>>that holds 2 Petabytes, or 2000 TBytes with robotic tape storage
>>and retreival. The robots move at 30 m/sec for faster access
>>times. -Jay
>Yeah, I'd say that those robots zipping around at 67 miles per
>hour would provide fast access.
>Hope they have good, long-lasting brakes, and are travelling on
>sturdy well-mounted tracks.
I pretty sure they're using StorageTek tape silos, these are 12
sided silos about 11' across holding around 5000 500 Meg tapes (I
have a 3-4 dozen upstairs), so the Arms move in a circle. The tapes
have laser read barcodes, so the arms can find and load a tape in
something like 2 sec.
Because they are 12 sided, you can butt them up against each other
like a honeycomb, and they can pass tapes to each other, it's
really cool, there is a string of them almost a 100 yards long
upstairs.
Don't you live in Chicago? You can stop by my office sometime and
see them.....
Brian
Member,Extropy Institute