Indeed, it will be interesting to see what Google can think up compared to the other big researchers. Though I wonder if the goals are slightly different, as G

Indeed, it will be interesting to see what Google can think up compared to the other big researchers. Though I wonder if the goals are slightly different, as Google is focusing on "Cloud Storage", rather than single hard performance. Which as they mentioned, the Cloud doesn't need to have great reliability (since data is assumed to be already redundant), this may allow them to decrease the cost of hard drives for exchange in cheaper disks that may fail more. Doesn't sound like they are expecting to increase size/performance alone with this effort.