Yea they talk about using 30 petabytes of data per year. Backblaze can fit that in half a dozen racks these days. I can't even imagine how much Google can squeeze into a modern data center. Storage sure moves quickly!
I wonder when the fixed costs of upgrading will be less than the operating costs of inefficient 15 year old hardware
Hw is regularly replaced, old kit being thrown at poor nations (obviously they’ll foot the energy bills). Its a regular intel shop, mostly with dell stickers. Truly run-of-the-mill current cots, what you would expect anywhere else.