Along came Google

The company we know as "Google" came to be on September 7 th, 1998 and grew exponentially from there. "Google", derived from the "googol", which refers to the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros, is now a household name for just about everything internet. Search, Web Mail, Maps, Ads, Blogging, Photos are just a few of the tangents that Google has taken over the years.

As the success of Google's Search engine increased, Google started selling search appliances that brought the power of the Google Search engine into corporate IT server rooms. When the appliances first came out, they carried a fairly hefty price tag, even for the entry level appliance. But, on April 6, 2005, the price of the Google Mini came down to a very reasonable $2,995, which is a sweet spot for IT managers to charge to their credit cards.

Once the price drop came into effect, we decided to purchase a unit and move our entire site searches over to the Mini.

Opening the Box

The Mini arrived in a box with Google printed in large letters along the side. Our UPS courier asked us what was in the box; it's not too often that you see Google on anything physical:

Opening the box reveals a decent packing job, similar to just about any other 1U server made by any reputable manufacturer.

Just inside, you'll find two Ethernet cables (one orange crossover cable and one yellow straight-through cable) and a power cord for the unit.

Below the cardboard tray of cables, you'll find the server itself:

...as well as a bag containing the rear-bracket mounting kit, installation guide and a free Google T-shirt:

Beneath the server, you'll find a box containing a modem:

The modem is used for Google to gain remote access to the machine if it needs remote maintenance:


Index Examining the Google Mini
Comments Locked

48 Comments

View All Comments

  • Calin - Tuesday, September 6, 2005 - link

    Pentium III processors are still offered in those 1U servers. The reason would be (probably) cheap price for good performance and lower thermal load than any other competitive Intel processors.
    Low thermal load helps a lot for dual processors servers.
  • flatblastard - Tuesday, September 6, 2005 - link

    Not only a p3 mobo, but PC133 ram labeled for DELL!?!? I guess Google is buying up all the old junk and putting it to good use.
  • bhtooefr - Tuesday, September 6, 2005 - link

    Heck, I've got a Dell PowerEdge 350 (1U, single 850 P3, i440BX chipset) sitting in front of me, and the RAM's not even labelled Dell...
  • flatblastard - Tuesday, September 6, 2005 - link

    making a fortune in the process....
  • brownba - Tuesday, September 6, 2005 - link

    Ok, so I tested it with this query:
    google mini search server
    - it came back with 18700 useless results.
    I also tried the title of the article:
    anandtech search goes google
    - 712 useless results

    how long does it take to crawl?
  • glennpratt - Tuesday, September 6, 2005 - link

    I'm guessing jason clark meant to reply to you.
  • Rock Hydra - Tuesday, September 6, 2005 - link

    I like it. I tested it out and got the returns I was expecting. Very Google-y style. Now if they implemented something this well into the forums search....maybe another day.
  • TheInvincibleMustard - Tuesday, September 6, 2005 - link

    So, naturally, I searched for iram ... returned zero results, but it did suggest i-ram as a possibility. So I clicked that link ...
    doh ... "I" is a very common word and so was not included in my search, meaning all I actually wound up searching for is "RAM" (of which there was several thousand entires, and not one of the top few was actually about the I-RAM product), so perhaps a bit more tweaking is in order ;-)

    Granted, though, the search did only take 0.02 seconds! :-D
  • dvinnen - Tuesday, September 6, 2005 - link

    I was playing around with it to. Did the i-ram search also, the first artical presented was an artical from 1997 about memory terms (think EDO). The actuall i-ram artical was actually the forth result presented. Hell, just a google search gives it as the 4th link in all the internets. Defently could use some tweaking (give added weight based on the date of the artical?) but looks to be a step up from the useless one built into SQL server you were useing.
  • glennpratt - Tuesday, September 6, 2005 - link

    Did you read my post?

    Did you click on the link that says 'i is a common word and was excluded' in the search? That would have given you a couple of choices on what to do to fix it.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now