That is more accurate. In terms of hardware + software it is closest to the Sun storage appliances which are Solaris or Linux with ZFS plus management tools.

The Sun promotional literature[1] refers to 70%+ cost savings on their units over comparable systems from EMC (the old school market leader). It was the fastest growing product at Sun, as it allowed companies to cut down storage costs using a model similar to what Google pioneered with Big Table and GFS.

[1] http://www.oracle.com/us/products/servers-storage/storage/un...

Exactly. This is what google excels at. At most IT shops redundant SAN storage and massive server capacity is hugely expensive because there are such incredibly high maintenance and personnel costs associated with such things. Google solves the problem by automating the ever loving crap out of everything and using commodity hardware (rather than "server-grade" stuff). The result is dramatically lower costs for things like redundant, networked storage. Allowing google to do things like offer free multi-gigabyte email accounts to everyone in the world or like upgrading youtube from 10mb/10min videos at sub-analog TV quality to 1080p unlimited length videos in multiple codecs.

From Google's perspective making use of these massive storage capabilities is a plus for them. They are able to do it at much lower cost than just about anyone else, so when they find a business case where they can leverage their storage capabilities they are smart to do so because it can translate into a competitive advantage. When you've got the fastest dragster on the strip you don't go around figuring out how to use it the least, rather you try your damnedest to race every car that you can.