{"id":67371,"date":"2016-09-26T14:07:56","date_gmt":"2016-09-26T21:07:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/?p=67371"},"modified":"2025-12-12T08:01:48","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T16:01:48","slug":"how-heavy-is-backblaze-cloud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/how-heavy-is-backblaze-cloud\/","title":{"rendered":"How Heavy Is the Backblaze Cloud?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Backblaze<\/a><\/p>\n

The question \u201cHow heavy is the Backblaze cloud?\u201d came up in a marketing meeting one Monday afternoon. \u201cOne million pounds,\u201d someone guessed. \u201cA hundred thousand pounds,\u201d someone else said trying to sound sure. The truth is we had no idea. \u201cWell, how much does a real cloud weigh?\u201d someone else asked, and at that point, we knew we had to find out more\u2026<\/p>\n

The Backblaze Cloud<\/h2>\n

Over the last few years, the folks at our Sacramento data center<\/a> have gotten used to me asking \u201codd\u201d questions. For example, how loud is the data center, or what are those sticky mats on the floor. See our \u201cA Day in the Life of a Data Center<\/a>\u201d post if you\u2019re curious.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, I sent over a list of questions to our data center manager, including the following:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. What does a 45 drive Backblaze Storage Pod weigh?<\/li>\n
  2. What does a 60 drive Backblaze Storage Pod weigh?<\/li>\n
  3. How much does an empty rack weigh?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I also asked for the weight of our networking equipment, non-storage servers, spare drives, and wiring. I did not ask about Guido<\/a>, his friend Luigi, or other maintenance equipment. I just needed enough information to calculate the weight of the hardware we use to acquire and store data.<\/p>\n

    Normally, the data center team in Sacramento is very responsive to my oddball requests. This time they were silent. I assumed they were busy. I tried again about a month later and this time I told them that I wanted to calculate the weight of the Backblaze cloud<\/a>. More silence. I decided to go visit one of data center team members in person with my request. After he stopped laughing, he Slacked the data center manager, who at that moment realized I was actually serious and not playing a stupid marketing trick. I had my answers an hour later.<\/p>\n

    A 45 drive Backblaze Storage Pod weighs 140 pounds, and the 60 drive Storage Pod weighs 158 pounds, and so on. Based on the information provided, I calculated that the hardware we use to power the Backblaze cloud weighs a little over 250,000 pounds, or about 113,400 kilograms.<\/p>\n

    The Backblaze cloud weighs over 250,000 pounds.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    One Terabyte per Pound<\/h3>\n

    That 250,000 pounds of Backblaze cloud hardware is used to store a little over 250 petabytes<\/a> of data. That means it takes one pound of hardware to store one terabyte of data.<\/p>\n

    Let\u2019s take a minute and give this weight to data relationship the \u201csniff test\u201d by looking at the weight of a 1TB hard drive<\/a>. Since we use 3 \u00bd\u201d drives to store data here are a few 3 \u00bd\u201d 1TB drives we found:<\/p>\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
    Drive<\/b><\/td>\nType<\/b><\/td>\nModel<\/b><\/td>\nWeight<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    Seagate 1TB Desktop<\/td>\nInternal<\/td>\nST1000DM003<\/td>\n14.1 ounces<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    WD Red 1TB NAS<\/td>\nInternal<\/td>\nWD10EFRX<\/td>\n15.8 ounces<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    Seagate 1TB FreeAgent GoFlex<\/td>\nExternal<\/td>\nSTAC1000103<\/td>\n2.4 pounds<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    WD 1TB My Book<\/td>\nExternal<\/td>\nWDBACW0010HBK-NESN<\/td>\n2.6 pounds<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

    Our 1TB per pound weight calculation fits nicely between the weight of the internal drive models and the weight of the external drive models. Also, given that 45 (or 60) internal drives share the weight of one enclosure (Storage Pod<\/a>) it makes sense our weight calculation is closer to that of the internal drives. Sniff test passed!<\/p>\n

    Comparing Clouds<\/h3>\n

    Perhaps you\u2019ve been asked by an inquisitive nine-year-old, \u201cHow much does a cloud weigh?\u201d If you answered, \u201cits heavy,\u201d and then changed the subject, perhaps we can help\u2014although there seem to be very different answers to this supposedly simple question.<\/p>\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
    How much does a cloud weigh?<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    a.<\/b> 216,000 pounds (NPR<\/a>).<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    b.<\/b> 1.1 million pounds (Mental Floss<\/a>).<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    c.<\/b> 8.8 million pounds (Zidbits<\/a>).<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    d.<\/b> All of the above.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

    Technically, a cloud has little or no weight, otherwise you\u2019d be crushed to death the next time the fog rolled in. The question should be, \u201cHow much is the mass of a cloud?\u201d but most nine-year-old children haven\u2019t learned about mass yet.<\/p>\n

    Back to the question at hand. The correct answer is \u201cd.\u201d How can all three be correct? Simple, they used different types of clouds, different sized clouds, or both. For example, a white, fluffy cumulus cloud holds about half a gram of water per cubic meter, while a cumulonimbus cloud can hold up to five grams of water per cubic meter\u201410 times as much in the same volume.<\/p>\n

    Based on what we\u2019ve learned so far, we can actually determine how big a fluffy cumulus cloud would have to be to have the same weight (250,000 pounds\/113,400 kg) as the Backblaze cloud:<\/p>\n