I found the following quote on the wikipedia page for the ZFS file system ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS)
Quoting Jeff Bonwick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bonwick) Although we'd all like Moore's Law<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_Law>to continue forever, quantum mechanics <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics> imposes some fundamental limits on the computation rate and information capacity of any physical device. In particular, it has been shown that 1 kilogram<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilogram>of matter confined to 1 litre <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litre> of space can perform at most 1051operations per second on at most 10 31 bits of information.[10] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS#cite_note-9> A fully populated 128-bit storage pool would contain 2128 blocks = 2137 bytes = 2140 bits; therefore the minimum mass required to hold the bits would be (2140 bits) / (1031 bits/kg) = 136 billion kg. To operate at the 1031bits/kg limit, however, the entire mass of the computer must be in the form of pure energy. By E=mc², the rest energy of 136 billion kg is 1.2x1028 J<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule>. The mass of the oceans is about 1.4x1021 kg. It takes about 4,000 J to raise the temperature of 1 kg of water by 1 degree Celsius<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degree_Celsius>, and thus about 400,000 J to heat 1 kg of water from freezing to boiling. The latent heat of vaporization adds another 2 million J/kg. Thus the energy required to boil the oceans is about 2.4x106 J/kg * 1.4x1021 kg = 3.4x1027 J. Thus, fully populating a 128-bit storage pool would, literally, require more energy than boiling the oceans.[11]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS#cite_note-10> Nothing like imposing some hard limits on a system :-) Andy --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NLUG" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nlug-talk?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
