[ohara]

Hey, y'all. I read somewhere (in some computing magazine) that disk space doubles every 10 months on a 3.5 inch hard drive. So, I'm wondering, seeing the largest drive available now (which i believe are 500 gb or will be by the 3rd quarter) , will it be accurate enough to predict that by june of next year one can buy a 1tb 3.5" drive?

[DMBand0026]

I'm going to say that it's not unlikely. If people out there will use them, than they'll be developed. Although I'd imagine they'll be prohibitively expensive for the average consumer, at least for a few months. That being said, I see no reason for the average consumer to have a 1tb drive.

[Mac+]

Originally Posted by DMBand0026 I see no reason for the average consumer to have a 1tb drive.

*ahem* - I can't recall the exact quote, but that sounds dangerously close to Bill Gates stating something along the lines of "No user will ever need more than 64K of RAM."

[sunrain]

Well, HD camcorders are on the horizon and video takes up a ton of space. I can *totally* see how the average consumer could quickly take advantage of a 1+ TB hard drive.

[jonecat]

I could totally use a 1 TB drive now. I don't see why that would not happen sooner than later. Where they need to make faster advances is in Laptop HD's, 100GB is not enough for mobile video editing even in SD.

[kscherer]

It may be sooner, may be later. 10 months is a long way off in computer terms. But 1TB drives are just around the corner. And, as with all computer technology, 1 out of every 100 people will NEED it, 98 will WANT it, and 1 will care less (and yes, that will be me!)

They will sell by the gazillion because of the 98.

[Franz Josef]

I'm about to buy a 1 TB LaCie. Digital photos are taking a huge amount of HD space. So yes, with HD camcorders and the like, we'll all be doing it.

[Wyatt]

Originally Posted by Mac+ *ahem* - I can't recall the exact quote, but that sounds dangerously close to Bill Gates stating something along the lines of "No user will ever need more than 64K of RAM."

Misquoted and taken out of context, actually (I only learned that recently).

http://tafkac.org/celebrities/bill.g...es_memory.html

Anywho, I can see uses for 1TB drives. I would love to have one. I can fill that much with my movie collection, probably, so I'd like to have one for my home theater rig.

[kscherer]

Originally Posted by fcgriz Misquoted and taken out of context, actually (I only learned that recently).

Or so HE says!

[DMBand0026]

Like I said, there's no reason for the average consumer to have a 1tb drive at this point in time. I'm going to assume that you guys aren't the average consumer. Joe six pack isn't going to need to film his daughter's 12th birthday party in HD. Eventually that will become the norm and at that point the pros will be using 10 tb drives and the consumers will have the 1-5tb drives.

At this point in time, there seems to be no reason for everyone to have one. If someone wants to blow upwards of $500us on one (that's what they'll no doubt cost), more power to them, but it's just not a necessity.

For example, I found 400gb drives at NewEgg for around $300, and NewEgg traditionally has great prices.

So what I'm saying is that today's average consumer won't need one, but eventually they'll become the norm.

[oldmacfan]

If you have not kept up on Hard drive news, then look up perpendicular hard drives. Before Christmas 2007 we will see at retail a 1 TB hard drive. Sorry, no time for linkage, go to the inquirer or google or where ever and you will find that information.

[ohara]

wait, fuck 1 tb drives... if 400 gb drives are now 300 bucks or so, then, in a year wouldn't they be $150 or less?

[DMBand0026]

Yes, they'll be less, but you don't ever see a brand new piece of technology debut at the lowest price it'll ever be at. People who want the newest stuff pay a premium for it, and the manufactures know they can get the money they're asking for. Those who can wait will wait and get a much better price after between 6 months and a year. The fact is, when these 1tb drives come out, they'll be expensive, the prices will drop, but if you want one in the 6 months after they come out, you'll pay a lot of money for it.

[Mac+]

Originally Posted by fcgriz Misquoted and taken out of context, actually (I only learned that recently). http://tafkac.org/celebrities/bill.g...es_memory.html

Thanks for the link.

Meh - I never claimed to know the exact quote, but if that is true then I guess I am guilty of perpetuating "the myth" ... anyway, I was only using it to illustrate the progressive nature of technology and the inherent Toad of Toad Hall in us all - wanting more speed (OK, OK - poetic licence ... replace speed for memory)

[Mac+]

Originally Posted by oldmacfan If you have not kept up on Hard drive news, then look up perpendicular hard drives. Before Christmas 2007 we will see at retail a 1 TB hard drive. Sorry, no time for linkage, go to the inquirer or google or where ever and you will find that information.

Oh yeah - and be sure to check out the flash advertisement for the technology.

There's a jingle that'll stay in your head ... "get perpendicular"

It popped up in a thread a while back. link

[onlyafterdark]

Oh ya, that was great.

[oldmacfan]

Btdt

[Res]

Originally Posted by DMBand0026 Like I said, there's no reason for the average consumer to have a 1tb drive at this point in time. I'm going to assume that you guys aren't the average consumer. Joe six pack isn't going to need to film his daughter's 12th birthday party in HD. Eventually that will become the norm and at that point the pros will be using 10 tb drives and the consumers will have the 1-5tb drives. At this point in time, there seems to be no reason for everyone to have one. If someone wants to blow upwards of $500us on one (that's what they'll no doubt cost), more power to them, but it's just not a necessity. For example, I found 400gb drives at NewEgg for around $300, and NewEgg traditionally has great prices. So what I'm saying is that today's average consumer won't need one, but eventually they'll become the norm.

They will be too expensive when they first come out, but they force down the price of the model below them, just as you can get 300GB drives now for $139. And a year later they will be affordable by all.

As to people needing them, in the near future they probably will. I have a 40gb internal and two 160gb external drives and I am running out of free space, and I am using less space then my friends who take a lot of digital pictures or make home movies of their kids.

[JK47]

I would really like an increase in laptop storage size. I recently switched from a dell desktop with 280 gig HD to a powerbook with a 100 gig HD. Though I love the OS, I dislike being limited with what I can put on the drive. I don't really want to get an external HD, because in my mind that defeats the purpose of having a laptop and being able to take it wherever....

[atomicbartbeans]

Uh, I take pictures, import into iTunes, work my Photoshop magic etc. all the time.

I'm currently using 10.97 GB on my iBook's hard disk (running panther).

I store everything I do on the hard disk, not on an external one or CDs. And yet i can't foresee filling up my remaining 20 GB within a year or two. I don't edit video, but I take at least 20-25 pictures a week, and I have 300-odd songs.

So... why would 98 out of 100 people want a 1 TB drive? I have little use for even a 100 GB hard drive.

Or maybe I'm missing the point...

[jouster]

Originally Posted by DMBand0026 ...Joe six pack isn't going to need to film his daughter's 12th birthday party in HD...

Marketing, not need, will decide whether or not Joe makes that purchase.

You could equally say he doesn't need a box with a 3 GHz P4 in it, but he sure is buying plenty of them.

[DMBand0026]

I'm talking today. In a few years when it's hard to find a camera that doesn't do HD, than yes, Joe six pack will film everything in HD. However, today, the cheapest HD camera is going to run you about 3 grand US, prohibitively expensive for most.

[jouster]

Originally Posted by DMBand0026 I'm talking today. In a few years when it's hard to find a camera that doesn't do HD, than yes, Joe six pack will film everything in HD. However, today, the cheapest HD camera is going to run you about 3 grand US, prohibitively expensive for most.

Sorry, I was unclear: I meant that he would buy a 1 TB HD in his winBox, whether he needs one or not, because he will have no choice - that's what manufacturers (including, presumably, Apple) will offer.

Of course you're right about HD cameras. They'll have to get considerably cheaper beofre they hit the mainstream.

[_Ω_]

Originally Posted by atomicbartbeans Uh, I take pictures, import into iTunes, work my Photoshop magic etc. all the time. I'm currently using 10.97 GB on my iBook's hard disk (running panther). I store everything I do on the hard disk, not on an external one or CDs. And yet i can't foresee filling up my remaining 20 GB within a year or two. I don't edit video, but I take at least 20-25 pictures a week, and I have 300-odd songs. So... why would 98 out of 100 people want a 1 TB drive? I have little use for even a 100 GB hard drive. Or maybe I'm missing the point...

After 3 years with my machine I think I have used 32GB. Of this about 20GB is music.

The reason why we are not filling up our HD's is that we are not downloading shitloads of porn from teh interweb.

[Res]

Almost no one is using HD now, but regular DV takes up about 12GB per hour. Even if you shot only 20 hours of video a year, you would need to add 240GB of storage per year.

Six mega-pixel digital pictures come it at about 3 Meg each in jpeg mode (18 meg each in raw), my sister has taken thousands of photo of her kids (I've only recently gotten a digital camera and I'm shooting a lot more pictures than I ever did with my Nikon N90s).

I have 36.97 GB of music, and I would love to rip my CD's in apple lossless format, but I can't because I don't have enough disk space.

When you add up all of the digital music, pictures and video that people are using nowadays, it really starts to up. Most average "Joe six pack" types I know would prefer to just dump their DV onto their computers and not have to worry about making room and trying to archive their video onto DVDs. If we had cheep 1000GB drives now people would be taking advantage of them (I know that when I get my hands on a couple of 1TB drives I'm going to load in all the DV footage that my family has taken of the past few years and make some cool compilation DVDs).

[hmurchison]

Originally Posted by jouster <snip> Of course you're right about HD cameras. They'll have to get considerably cheaper beofre they hit the mainstream.

Oh you mean like the new Sony HDV camera for roughly $1600. Most consumer don't need a TB right now but I wouldn't discount their need for the future.

I don't think drives are doubling in space every 10 months. There , to my knowledge, is not an equivalent to Moore's Law in hard drives. In fact the companies seem to be artificially limiting growth. For instance the largest density of drives current goes to Seagate at 133MB per platter meaning their 400GB drives are only 3 platters. If they took the same platters and made a 5 platter design they'd have a 667MB drive today. So in order to hit 1TB we'll need 200GB per platter and 5 platters. Or 333MB per platter and 3 platters. I'd say we're about 18 months away.

Me myself I'd love to have about 6TB of data. All my music and DVDs would be ripped to a Media server in the highest quality.

[intlplby]

i could easily use 2 tb already..... especially when it is not good to let HFS+ drives have less than 15% free space

in addition i think a lot of people could use having a RAID 1 array that is affordable since having 1tb or more is fine and dandy, but if there is a drive failure, can you imagine how much it would suck to lose 1tb of information.....

[abrooks]

More information on perpendicular hard drives and a groovy animation can be found here http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/resear...Animation.html

[johnq]

I want one so I can dump old data off of all my old ZIP disks, backup CDs and various sub-120gb external drives.

I want it all on one drive, searchable via Spotlight....15 years worth of data

Then I want two of them.

[jouster]

Originally Posted by hmurchison Oh you mean like the new Sony HDV camera for roughly $1600. Most consumer don't need a TB right now but I wouldn't discount their need for the future. <snip>

Yowzah, nice find. I had no idea they were already available for less than $2000.

Your second point however is what I was disagreeing with earlier: it doesn't matter whether they're (1 TB drives, that is) going to be needed or not, they'll be sold because the marketing droids will demand it.