• megopie@beehaw.org
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    2 months ago

    it seems a bit disingenuous to call these “data centers in space” or “super computers”.

    30 terabytes of storage across 12 satellites? So 2.5 TB each and 744 tops (which is like, a modern mid range graphics card for a PC, the RX 9070 XT does 1557 tops for reference). Like that just sounds like they’re launching a powerful PC in to orbit. Like, that’s a lot of power for a satellite, for comparison the curiosity rover is using the same kind of CPU as a 2000 era imac G3, but it’s not a data center.

    The idea of doing more processing of the data on the satellite rather than processing it on the ground is interesting and neat, but representing these as anything more than that is… weird.

      • megopie@beehaw.org
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        2 months ago

        That’s still not very much compared to most data centers. Like, 7000 terabytes is a lot of storage for one person, but it barely even registers compared to most modern data centers.

        Also, 2800 desktops networked together isn’t really a super computer or a data center.

        such a network is interesting as a scientific tool for gathering and processing data, certainly, but not a data-center and not a super computer.

      • TehPers@beehaw.org
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        2 months ago

        I have a server at home built from old parts and some refurbished drives with nearly as much storage as the currently launched satellites. 2800 satellites like this would come out to around 230 of my servers, or ~7PB.

        A single 2U server with 12 drives, each with 24TB storage, can hold 288TB. It would take ~24 of those to get to 7PB, which is a lot of servers, but not so many that someone with quite a lot of savings couldn’t afford it.

        Also, the servers on the ground can be cooled by, idk, air if needed. Or water. Or I guess liquid nitrogen if you want. Point is there’s an atmosphere for the heat to dissipate to, unlike space.