Google's Colossus internal storage system still relies on HDDs for storing most of its data

Editor's take: In Colossus: The Forbin Project, an advanced supercomputer becomes sentient and enslaves humankind. Colossus is also the name of the storage platform where almost all of Google's internet services reside. Though we don't know if the company took direct inspiration from the classic sci-fi movie, the connotations are still present. In a recent blog post, Google revealed some of the "secrets" hiding behind Colossus, a massive network infrastructure the company describes as its universal storage platform. Colossus is robust, scalable, and easy to use and program. Google said the massive machine still uses tried-and-true (yet still evolving) magnetic hard disk drives. Colossus powers many Google services, including YouTube, Gmail, Drive, and more. The platform evolved from the Google File System project, a distributed storage system for managing large, data-intensive applications, making things more manageable. Surprisingly, Google supercharged Colossus by installing an exc ... Read full article.