[ok_dad]

Around ~2005 I took a tour of the [a well known government organization] and they were bragging about several-PB-sized databases at the time. Interestingly, there was a TON of server racks there in a bomb-proof building with tons of security, and they were all IBM servers (a supercomputer maybe?), if I remember correctly. Also, there was one small server rack that was painted differently from the rest (it looked like something made in-house), and we asked what it was, and the tour guide (a PhD computer scientist) said that technically it doesn't exist and he couldn't talk about it even though it was super cool. Now that I know what they were doing around that time (and probably still today) I am kinda scared at the implications of that tour guide's statement and what that one tiny rack was for. I'm glad I never went to work in their organization, since that tour was meant to recruit some of us a few years down the road.

[barrkel]

This comment contains no information other than an ego boost for yourself, AFAICT.

[ok_dad]

I need every ego boost I can get these days, friend. Either way, I was intending to tell a story directly relevant to the OP about how there were very large databases even back then. Interestingly, the same size databases are probably run on much less hardware today.

[golergka]

Was that a three letter US government agency?