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Thursday, April 2. 2009Gigabyte GA-9IVDP The Google Server with a Gigabyte GA-9IVDP motherboard Attached to each Gigabyte GA-9IVDP (The motherboard's model number might actually be GA-91VDP I can't say if it is a 1 or a capital i) motherboard are two hard drives, which look to be Hitachi Deskstars, eight chips of memory, maximum of 4 gigs each server since the operating system is x86, and a 12 volt battery as their own Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS). Google explains that designing their servers with their own UPS battery is more efficient then having ten on one single UPS. Pretty interesting... The real question with the hardware is whether or not Google's servers actually use the same exact parts. Do they know something most of us don't know about the reliability of Hitachi Deskstars? Or how about the Magnetek Power supplies? Perhaps it's time to dig up some stats for this hardware. Thanks cnet for the info. 
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The power supply has a google part number printed on a sticker. The article also says that both the motherboard and power supply are customized designs.
As Mr. Bill points out (http://weblog.mrbill.net/archives/2009/04/01/google-server-and-the-gigabyte-ga-9ivdp/), I suspect this system is from a little while back, and not the latest technology in use by Google. All other indications are the MB and PSU are custom made for Google. Judging from their paper on disk failures I suspect they used Deskstars for a short time before switching to something else; it sounded like they used many different brands of drives over the years.
It is an "I", not a "1".
And x86 systems can certainly have more than 4GB RAM; some OSes can not access it, but Linux can.
it is KNOWN that google does NOT use one vendor for harddrives
in googles seminal white paper on hard drive smart metrics in LARGE samples they talk about different lots from different vendors
You can see the GA-9IVDT here (http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Networking/Products_Spec.aspx?ProductID=1075)
It looks quite similar to its google counterpart but more feature full (onboard video etc) It is also clearly not a newer core or nehalem based board placing it at 3 generations old. As anon said the PSU is also clearly custom with the big 12VDC lines running into it from the battery. The Hitachi deskstars where actually pretty reliable after the bugs where nailed out :p I have had one running happily for a couple of years. All in all its probably one of their older servers or an older pic.
Considering this hardware, its no wonder Google was willing to help with the Helmer (http://helmer.sfe.se/).
[The most amazing is that this machine just cost as a better standard PC, but has 24 cores that run each at 2.4 Ghz, a total of 48GB ram, and just need 400W of power!! This means that it hardly gets warm, and make less noise then my desktop pc.] He's running a lot more processor, a lot more RAM, using less than the power than two of these servers. Given that his boards are using onboard graphics and sound, and Google wouldn't need them, they stand to save a significant amount from just having one container's worth of servers alone. |
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