I don't think the HDDs are being used for any intensive loads. They have too much latency for most of that. It's probably just archival storage for their scraped content and generated slop.

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zozbot234 3 hours ago | parent [-]

For "cold" archival storage you would want to use tape, which is far cheaper per TB at scale.

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digiown 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I don't mean that type of archive, but rather "just in case" data like "last month's scrape of this website" after we scraped it 5 more times this month or higher resolution versions of book scans. You might want to still be able to dump it out quickly if you need it. Money is no object for these companies and the cost of HDDs is more than low enough for the flexibility they provide.

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pixl97 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If demand for hard drives is this high then it sounds like there wouldn't be near enough tape around either.

	▲	Fnoord an hour ago \| parent [-]
		This is why I am buying a couple of LTO 6 tapes. Thus far I've been able to buy 4 for approx 120 EUR, 2,5 TB each. They have been around 30 EUR each the past years, and still are approx such price (leaning towards 35 EUR though). I bought a second hand drive for about 500 EUR, and a HBA for it.