Does gmail have to much space on their servers?

[Lostincyberspace]

I just logged into my gmail account and was surprised to see that I had it over a half gig and it was only a 6%. So i got to wondering if there is to much space on theirs servers. So I decided to ask everyone here what they thought.

[Kzin]

I just logged into my gmail account and was surprised to see that I had it over a half gig and it was only a 6%. So i got to wondering if there is to much space on theirs servers. So I decided to ask everyone here what they thought.

Hmmm, I am using my Gmail like storage... for me it works great. If they want to hold all the pics of sharks eating people hanging out of helicopters and kittens with limes as helmets then all the power to them.

:guitar:

Actually, just to note that they do use everything in there to profile you and market to you.

[Lostincyberspace]

I use firefox and add block and google blocked for ads.

[LookTJ]

I use firefox and add block and google blocked for ads.How is this related to the topic here? ;)

Anyways, I would say no because some don't want to delete their mails or photos, some others use it for storage because most free storage services only provide 1GB or lower I think.

[el_ricardo]

hell no, its great, fantastic for backups and remote storage when your in a rush

[tylerspaska]

I'm confused by the question, unless you mean "too much." In that case, the answer is no. Who has ever heard of having too much space???

[Lostincyberspace]

How is this related to the topic here? ;)

Anyways, I would say no because some don't want to delete their mails or photos, some others use it for storage because most free storage services only provide 1GB or lower I think.
I was commenting about the last part of the previous comment. And since I am the thread starter all my posts are technically on target.

[Tundro Walker]

How cheap are you that you have to use Gmail's 1gb of email storage for storing files on? A cheap-o HD costs like $50 ... heck, you can get used HD's off CraigsList for like $5 that have ~10+ gig on them.

Man, stop perpetuating the myth that Linux users are nothing but cash-strapped leeches. :)

EDIT:

Side note, since google likes to operate on the "distributed computing" model, they probably just buy up a ton of old, "useless" computers dirt-cheap (if not free) from companies that don't want them anymore (EG: P2's, P3's), and just toss all of them into some super gmail cluster, and tossing all the HD's into some RAID housing. That way the comps can grind through stuff like a server, and store info into the RAID's as needed. Sounds dumb, but you can consistently find companies selling 10+ comps on Craigslist for like $20 each, and these are like P2's with 256mb RAM + 10gb+ HD. You snatch those up, toss them into the distributed server cluster, and you've just increased the server grindage by another 10 P2's and added another 100gb+ to the server space. And that would just cost $200. $200 to provide storage for another 100 people and added horse-power to the network...not a bad deal, especially compared to buying an actual server or mega-harddrive. When one of those dinky drives craps out, they just swap it out without fear of data-loss, since RAID (in some configurations) dupes data across drives for just such emergencies.

[JacobRogers]

How cheap are you that you have to use Gmail's 1gb of email storage for storing files on? A cheap-o HD costs like $50 ... heck, you can get used HD's off CraigsList for like $10 that have ~10+ gig on them.

Man, stop perpetuating the myth that Linux users are nothing but cash-strapped leeches. :)

Utilizing an available and good option because it is free doesn't make you cheap. But on the same topic instead of getting a hard drive I'd recommend a flash drive, I got a 2 gig flash drive from Sam's for 20 bucks.

[hhhhhx]

i think google utilized the power of the sun to create its file system, and now are just waiting to see how long it takes for people to fill it. :)

[maniacmusician]

How cheap are you that you have to use Gmail's 1gb of email storage for storing files on? A cheap-o HD costs like $50 ... heck, you can get used HD's off CraigsList for like $5 that have ~10+ gig on them.

Man, stop perpetuating the myth that Linux users are nothing but cash-strapped leeches. :)

Google actually offers over 6GB of storage. I don't think it really has anything to do with money. It's just convenient to have some place to store files that you can retrieve from anywhere.


EDIT:

Side note, since google likes to operate on the "distributed computing" model, they probably just buy up a ton of old, "useless" computers dirt-cheap (if not free) from companies that don't want them anymore (EG: P2's, P3's), and just toss all of them into some super gmail cluster, and tossing all the HD's into some RAID housing. That way the comps can grind through stuff like a server, and store info into the RAID's as needed. Sounds dumb, but you can consistently find companies selling 10+ comps on Craigslist for like $20 each, and these are like P2's with 256mb RAM + 10gb+ HD. You snatch those up, toss them into the distributed server cluster, and you've just increased the server grindage by another 10 P2's and added another 100gb+ to the server space. And that would just cost $200. $200 to provide storage for another 100 people and added horse-power to the network...not a bad deal, especially compared to buying an actual server or mega-harddrive. When one of those dinky drives craps out, they just swap it out without fear of data-loss, since RAID (in some configurations) dupes data across drives for just such emergencies.

That may be how they started out, but since they're a corporation right now, they just have server farms. Entire buildings full of racks upon racks of Blade servers, each of which can hold multiple hard drives (large ones), all networked together through high-end circuits and probably fiber optic cables for optimum bandwidth. They're also continuously buying/building more data centers, and they recently submitted patents for "mobile" data centers that are about as big as a U-Haul truck and can be moved around.

So they don't really use clusters of old computers nowadays; they really can't, with the amount of traffic and bandwidth that they need. For one, the computers probably wouldn't be able to keep up. Also, they're inefficiently bulky to use in data centers (look up blade servers to see what I mean). What you're talking about is a good solution for new businesses that can't afford much equipment, but for someone like Google, it isn't a viable solution, especially with the amount of important data that they carry. They need reliable hard drives that won't crap out on them, and old 10GB hard drives won't be lasting for too much longer, unless you take immaculate care of them.

It's also pretty cheap to build cheap storage for yourself even if you buy new parts. For $450, I can build a file server with a terabyte of storage using a cheap AM2 processor (or a cheaper single core if I need to), a $100 board, and two 500GB WD Caviar SE16 hard drives.

[maniacmusician]

Utilizing an available and good option because it is free doesn't make you cheap. But on the same topic instead of getting a hard drive I'd recommend a flash drive, I got a 2 gig flash drive from Sam's for 20 bucks.
In terms of storage, you still get more bang for your buck with a hard drive. Of course, flash drives are a great choice for portable storage, and I have a 2GB one, though I recieved it as an award instead of buying it. They weren't as cheap the last time I bought one, so my older ones are only in 256MB and 512MB quantities.

[Tundro Walker]

That may be how they started out, but since they're a corporation right now, they just have server farms. Entire buildings full of racks upon racks of Blade servers... They're also continuously buying/building more data centers, and they recently submitted patents for "mobile" data centers that are about as big as a U-Haul truck and can be moved around...

So what you're saying is Google is building the equivalent of the Aquinas hub from Deus Ex ... which means the head of Google actually works for the Illuminati! Dude, it all makes sense now!

I like how Google's just chugging along behind the scenes, doing all kinds of great stuff, finding the ever elusive balance between being a profitable company and a giving company that actually supports the community. I keep waiting for the day when some "switch" will get flipped and we find out Google's actually been amassing some kind of personal army, a la James Bond villain, and everything they've got their hands into has secretly been part of their plan to take over the world. Talk about pessimistic..LOL!

[Presto123]

i think google utilized the power of the sun to create its file system, and now are just waiting to see how long it takes for people to fill it. :)

Methinks you are right. :P

[kevdog]

Am I wrong in saying this, but doesnt Yahoo offer unlimited space for free? Im not sure if you can upload files and such to their servers, but they dont restrict your mail space.

Just as a warning to all, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and all other services offering free mail -- once your mail is stored on their servers its theirs. Even if you delete it, they keep a copy. This has had many repercussions -- ie govt agencies asking to see a whole group of user(s) email. And Im not talking only about the US govt. The Chinese govt has subpenaed for user's emails and have used evidence obtained to help prosecute and jail people.

Im a big user of Gmail and like their model. I however recommend for all users that if they are emailing anything they think might be sensitive or controversial, to use gpg or some other form of data encryption. That way even if you delete the email, and gmail for example keeps a copy of the email, its contents can not be revealed -- unless the NSA cryptography experts say otherwise :)

[markp1989]

i currently have 6285 MB of storage on googlemail, and considering i currently use it for emails and not storage im never going to fill it up, si i think it is a good idea

[FuturePilot]

There's no such thing as too much space :)

[-grubby]

I don't think they actually have that much space on their servers. It's just an incentive for users to join gmail. They know that most people will NEVER fill 6GB full of email or even uploaded files

[Paqman]

Exactly, i'd like to see what they did if every user actually decided to use their full allocation.

I'd be quite interested to learn how they actually assess how much storage they actually need.

[maniacmusician]

Exactly, i'd like to see what they did if every user actually decided to use their full allocation.

I'd be quite interested to learn how they actually assess how much storage they actually need.
They'd just add more hard drives. I'm sure that just one of the rooms in their data centers can hold several petabytes. I'm also sure that they're prepared for this happening and already have racks that are waiting to be turned on if needed.

[Lostincyberspace]

Its true they could probably download the whole internet on their servers alone.

[Tundro Walker]

They'd just add more hard drives. I'm sure that just one of the rooms in their data centers can hold several petabytes. I'm also sure that they're prepared for this happening and already have racks that are waiting to be turned on if needed.

Exactly. Google doesn't seem like the kind of company that lets their mouth write checks their *** can't cash. I don't think they operate on the banking principle of just keeping enough cash on hand to only cover casual withdrawals, which would make a bank shafted if every account holder decided to withdraw all their money at once.

They probably have an hourly report spitting out the avg storage usage, and when it hits a certain threshhold it automatically switches on more banks of servers to cover additional needs. It might go so far as consolidating data across the servers (equivilent to a system-wide defrag), letting it max out the storage on as few servers as possible so they only have to have like 20 servers on with perhaps 80-90% storage used up instead of 100 servers on with only 10% used up on each.

[daulex]

Its true they could probably download the whole internet on their servers alone.

lol, they have been doing that since launch. Sergey said that in a rough estimation they calculated that they had about 70% of the active and popular web sites ( with <50 users per month) stored on their drives, ever tried pressing the "cached" button in search, under any result? :D it loads the snapshot of the page from the last time the crawler was on the site.

70% may not seem too much, but when u look at the numbers they are dealing with (and they are increasing at about 100 per second, yes, a lot of them die in 2 days and never see daylight, nevertheless) u have to give credit to google.

myself, I've been using gmail for years now, was extremely lucky to be one of the first ones to be invited to gmail years ago when the only way to get in was by invitations and noone had any, cause they only gave out 5 at first.

<3 google, <3 gmail

and hopefully.. one day.. i will be able to say <3 goobuntu ;)

[notwen]

You are currently using 499 MB (7%) of your 6415 MB.

I'm at 7% currently and I've had mine since May 2004. As long as I don't run out of space, I'll be happy and at this rate I'll be happy until I die.

[Tristam Green]

I am using 1% of my "drive". I too was a first-generation gmailer, and was one of the first to have two accounts. I've used one solely for online use, and the other was for personal business. It's been remarkable the amount of stuff I've been able to do with Gmail, and with their addition of IMAP support, I can extend that to any computer as well.

Likewise, I once used GmailFS for offline storage of files. I do so miss using that.

[Lostincyberspace]

I have been at about 6-8% since I signed up when we only got a gig. and used invitations.