Answer: LEGO Blocks

In 1996 when Larry Page and Sergey Brin needed a large server to test their “Pagerank” algorithms–what would go on to become the basis for Google–they needed to store a lot of data about the world wide web to do so.

The largest hard drives that were commercially available at the time were 4GB, so to get a mere 40GB of disk space to work with they needed to assemble them into an array. The cost of the disks was hefty enough there wasn’t much money left over for a suitable server case so they cobbled one together out of LEGO blocks, plastic sheeting, and some case fans.

A mere four years later, they were running their algorithms off a 5,000 computer data farm. Although Google does not disclose how many servers are part of their current system, it is estimated that they currently run in excess of 1.5 million computers to power their global search empire.