The Petabyte

[Trekker4747]

So, right now, hard drive sizes of around or over 1 Terabyte (1000 Gigabytes) are out there.

The first 500 Gigabyte hard-drives came out around 2005. So in five years we have doubled hard drive capacities.

The first terabyte hard-drive came out in 2007 and by 2010 3TB hard-drives were out there.

So when will we see the first Petabyte hard-drive (1000 Terabytes.) When will see the first Terabyte thumb-drives or electronic drives in phones and iPods and such?

 

[Jadzia]

In the last few years, we've had to change the way we store data on hard drives.

In the past, bits were stored in the plane of the disc. (eg, north poles pointing towards the spindle are ones, and south poles pointing towards the spindle are zeros.)

Now we have to store them on end. (eg, north poles down into the platter are ones, and south poles down into the platter are zeros.)

The reason for this change we are told is because we're struggling to fit any more bits onto the magnetic substrate, and this new method uses less space per bit.

We can guess from this change that increasing the density of magnetic storage has started to become difficult. We may not be able to take things as far as a petabyte.

But if we want to extrapolate the curve...

mid 1990s - 1GB
1998 - 10GB
2002 - 100GB
2007 - 1000GB

that's about 4-5 years per factor of 10.

so
2007 - 1TB
2012 - 10TB
2017 - 100TB
2022 - 1000TB = 1PB

 

[Verteron]

We can guess from this change that increasing the density of magnetic storage has started to become difficult. We may not be able to take things as far as a petabyte.

I remember when they said 1GB would never be possible, I also remember them saying the same about 1TB drives, but here we are.

Given the pace of innovation with solid state flash disks, I think it's highly likely that they will take over from magnetic hard disks for primary system storage in the next few years. Given they're made of transistors, there's significant scope for cells getting a lot smaller and density getting a lot higher. Sky's the limit!

 

[CorporalClegg]

I think they need to start focusing more on physical size than on virtual size. The form factor of the standard HD really hasn't changed much over the years whether it be disk, SS, or otherwise.

I look forward to the day when I can take my entire digital library (books, pics, songs, movies, etc) with me.

I know the current trend is to progress forward towards having all the stuff in the cloud. But I seriously hope people wise up and that becomes a fad.

 

[Jadzia]

Why settle for half-height hard drives, when you can have full height?

Year: 1990 | Capacity 110MB | Weight 2.5kg | Cost $4000

 

[Amaris]

Why settle for half-height hard drives, when you can have full height?

Year: 1990 | Capacity 110MB | Weight 2.5kg | Cost $4000

W-how-how! It's been a LONG time since I've seen one of those!

 

[Jadzia]

I saw one up for sale on ebay earlier this month. The owner claimed to have paid several thousand pounds for it in the early 1990s. It sold for 99p.

A quick calculation:


To create a petabyte hard drive at current physical sizes (3.5 inch), each bit would be only 10 atoms wide. Possible in theory. I don't know how well magnetism behaves when we get down towards quantum levels either.

In present day hard drives, bits are several hundred atoms wide.

 

[scotpens]

Hey, it wasn’t that long ago I was archiving files on these clunky things.

And this Peta can bite me anytime she wants to.

 

[Sephiroth]

Why settle for half-height hard drives, when you can have full height?

Year: 1990 | Capacity 110MB | Weight 2.5kg | Cost $4000

hey! i use one of those as a doorstop

 

[Sparky]

The first hard drive.
1956 IBM RAMAC 305. Approx 5 Megabytes of storage.

Ramac promotional video.
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOD1umMX2s8[/yt]

 

[Starbreaker]

This makes me want to throw up. My parents bought a Packard Bell computer when I was in the fifth grade that had 65 MBs of storage.

 

[Trekker4747]

hey! i use one of those as a doorstop

Funny, I threw one into the window of a dry cleaner's just the other day. Guy owed me protection money.

 

[Trekker4747]

I remember my dad freaking out when we filled up the 20mb hard drive on one of our first computers.

 

[Amaris]

The first hard drive.
1956 IBM RAMAC 305. Approx 5 Megabytes of storage.

Ramac promotional video.

That is so cool!

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

I thought this might be about those animal rights idiots biting people in a "man bites man" type story.

So they got 3TB now? I have a 1.5TB that's about 3/4 full of video.

 

[Amaris]

You can now find 1TB hard drives for $59 at TigerDirect. I'm amazed at how fast that price has come down!

 

[SeerSGB]

You can now find 1TB hard drives for $59 at TigerDirect. I'm amazed at how fast that price has come down!

Asked me how pissed I am about that I just bought a 2Tera for $120 bucks back before Christmas and was in Wal Mart (or Kmart, I forget which) and saw the same drive for $75.

All though, if the prices come on down I might get one to toss in my satchel to run was a USB fob-o-doom for the laptop.

 

[sojourner]

^ You will always find the same piece of hardware cheaper after you bought it. That's just the way the computer industry is. Breakneck innovation + mass production = constantly falling prices.

I like to be fairly up to date with my hardware but am not crazy enough to try and stay bleeding edge, so a use a general rule of 2 years and $200. If I have a piece of equipment that is 2 years old and I can get a significant upgrade for $200 or less, I go for it.

 

[RAMA]

The first hard drive.
1956 IBM RAMAC 305. Approx 5 Megabytes of storage.

Ramac promotional video.

omg look at that thing! My first PC had 16MB of RAM 2GB of storage.

 

[Amaris]

You can now find 1TB hard drives for $59 at TigerDirect. I'm amazed at how fast that price has come down!

Asked me how pissed I am about that I just bought a 2Tera for $120 bucks back before Christmas and was in Wal Mart (or Kmart, I forget which) and saw the same drive for $75.

All though, if the prices come on down I might get one to toss in my satchel to run was a USB fob-o-doom for the laptop.

It's why I stopped buying retail. It just got ridiculous with how fast the prices dropped.

^ You will always find the same piece of hardware cheaper after you bought it. That's just the way the computer industry is. Breakneck innovation + mass production = constantly falling prices.

I like to be fairly up to date with my hardware but am not crazy enough to try and stay bleeding edge, so a use a general rule of 2 years and $200. If I have a piece of equipment that is 2 years old and I can get a significant upgrade for $200 or less, I go for it.

That's a good rule of thumb.