Bruce Wayne would need petabytes of storage to support his nocturnal hobby
I saw The Dark Knight. The thing I like most about this movie and its predecessor Batman Begins is their plausibility. Unlike most superhero movies, they are able to account for the hero’s “powers” with (mostly) credible technology. Not cheap or easy, but almost feasible.
So…what are Batman’s storage requirements?
- Surveillance – Looked like the Bat Cave had a multi-stream DVR capturing local broadcast channels. I’ll bet he had dozens of surveillance camera feeds as well. Keeping a month’s worth of 100 video feeds would take about 20 terabytes of storage.
- Facial Recognition – Batman’s system was using facial recognition software to uncover the Joker’s identity, to no avail. He’d have had better luck with more resolution. Assuming he could get HD-quality video, the surveillance feeds would need 80 or more terabytes.
- Forensics – I don’t really get how the fingerprints on the gun casing showed up, but the high-powered processing being used looked supercomputer-like, probably requiring at least a few terabytes to iterate.
- Security – A no-brainer. The Batmobile and the Bat Cave need Full Disk Encryption on every disk drive to guarantee the Bat’s secrets remain so.
- Telecommunications – using all of Gotham’s cellphones as a surveillance system? OK, not so credible. Even if the technology could work, keeping the feeds from a million phones for even an hour would require over a petabyte of storage.
- The Bat Signal – no storage required.
Don’t forget an incredibly talented and discreet IT admin. Or is Alfred doing that too?
What else?
I, too, also like the newer Christopher Nolan directed versions of the movies as opposed to the comic book looking ones that were released 10-15 years ago. I think it makes the struggle Batman has between good and evil more realistic to where I empathise with him more. I thought Michael Caine playing Alfred the Butler also did an excellent job in verbalizing the stuggle Batman faces in making the tough choices no one else is willing to make.
His Rolodex for all his girlfriends should be worth another TB or 2! In the comics Bruce was never such a playboy.
Soooo… when can I get my hands on a 1PB drive? Or are cape and mask required?
I predict you’ll be able to get your 1 PB drive in 2025.
I like this! I especially like the question about who is doing IT for this system. I would also like to estimate the communications bandwidth he would need. While recluse multi-billionaires can be assumed to have only the best, I am not sure that would do it either.
So how would Bruce propose to backup all of this data? Seriously, when you start to talk about storage systems in the PB range, the time to do the backup is a serious factor. Maybe you avoid backups all together and make sure the storage is bullet proof, but that is much easier said than done.
At least he wouldn’t have any compliance issues. : )
Hey all, let’s not forget, it’s a movie – you can’t believe everything you see in the movies…! See this month’s issue of Wired about geek classic War Games, for example:
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/magazine/16-08/ff_wargames
Of course, much movie production and editin these days is done digitally, so they _did_ use some fancy storage to make the Batman movie in HD spendor:
http://www.avid.com/showcase/the-dark-knight.asp
only looks like a couple TB though…
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As an aside, I think the idea with the fingerprint on the bullet was as follows:
The bullet fragmented on impact.
The giant gatling gun firing shots into slabs of mortar was to figure out what kind of bullet it was by comparing the damage done to the wall.
Once batman knew what kind of bullet it was, that made it easier to put the pieces back together, virtually.
Pseudo science of course, but thats how its explained in the film.
Got it. So the difference between the orignal fragments and the test fragments was the fingerprint. Alfred must’ve worn gloves.
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batman must need some Security Software
[…] Seagate – Penned by Seagate Global Marketing Manager Pete Steege, Storage Effect is a must-read blog for anyone in the computer storage industry. Beyond first looks at upcoming Seagate products, Steege mixes it up with musings about the industry and fun posts like a recent one about Batman’s storage requirements. […]