With rapidly declining storage costs, would petabyte computers be the norm?

[greenmaji]

Methinks Super Nade is skewing the poll in his favor

Methinks your right, he's still trying to get $50 out of me for becoming a senior

Why is the discussion moving tword a single drive?

I think a resonable amount of drives tops out around four possibly as high as six.

At current HD capasities we are just under half way there. Soo I don't see how this isn't going to be possible in the next 5-10 years.

 

[emboss]

Why is the discussion moving tword a single drive?

I think a resonable amount of drives tops out around four possibly as high as six.

Not for "norm", at least with the current 3.5 inch form factor. I'd say the average desktop system nowadays has less 1.01 hard drives in it, due to the huge number of HP/Dell/etc machines that come with a single drive.

At current HD capasities we are just under half way there. Soo I don't see how this isn't going to be possible in the next 5-10 years.

You may want to check your units We're talking about PETAbytes, not TERAbytes. Currently, if you use the largest drives available (750GB drives), you'll need 1334 drives to reach a HDD-manufacturer petabyte assuming you don't use any for redundancy.

 

[matva]

yes, the future is more storage. in 70 yrs we may even see tens of petabytes being the norm. Videos, audio, games, and all multimedia will only get larger. multimedia will also be streamed at higher bit rates and we may even see the internet as the main distribution for copyrighted multimedia (movies, music, etc) which would require even more storage. Imagine, instead of keeping your collection on disks, you keep them on harddrives. Sure this is already being done, but im talking on a much larger scale, not 15 dvds, or 100 compressed xvid movies, or 5000 crappy MP3s. I'm talking HIGH DEF video and audio stored on a hard drive which will then be transferable to smaller hdds (think ipod) to move around with.
I also think backing up/RAID will be an absolute standard. this will be largely due to the fact that storage will continue to grow faster than people can use the storage. Now they will use it to mirror their drive and prevent data loss. i actually see this happening much sooner.
this is not to mention the population as a whole will be more technically apt.

 

[Will Eatforfood]

This one?

http://www.theprodukkt.com/kkrieger

...WOw... Is it playable?

 

[jivetrky]

Yep, totally playable.....it's no HL2 or anything...but for a ~90k game, it's pretty cool


There's also this:
http://necromanthus.com/Games/ShockWave/quake3.html

I don't know what size it is, but it loads real quick (shockwave) ...oh and the AI is dumb as a box of rocks. (the kkreiger game is way better)

/end offtopic

 

[Deadbot1_1973]

Methinks your right, he's still trying to get $50 out of me for becoming a senior

$50???? starts waving a c-note around....MY TURN!!!!!

I would assumer that the normal system(including the sixpack systems like dell) has at most 2 drives. Now for peeps like us the norm is probably 4, with the top end being as many as we can afford.

Considering that getting to a terabyte isn't all that cheap yet( roughly 3 bills), getting to a Petabyte would be roughly....insane. Drive pricing per MB will have to become drive pricing per Terabyte first. I'd say that's a ways off yet.

Always remember...we don't drive the market...the sixpacks do. And most Sixpackers are cheap.

 

[greenmaji]

You may want to check your units We're talking about PETAbytes, not TERAbytes.

duhh

 

[zexmarquies01]

I will say YES. Simply because I just burned nearly 350 gigs of stuff on my PC to DVD's about a week or two ago.

and i already have nearly downloaded another 100+ gigs since then.

The SECOND i get more free HDD space, i tend to try to fill it up ASAP. then as soon as i'm full, i download less, and wait to burn the stuff to DVD....but then the second i burn a few DVD's worth of files, i have new files downloading.

it kinda sucks really. because i download faster than i can burn ( well, not TECHNICALLY, as i can burn DVD's at 16x, which takes a whole 5 min. for a FULL single layed DVD ( 4.7gigs ).

So i try to buy HDD's when their on sale. But i'm CONSTANTLY buying Bank DVD's all the time. Its sickning.

i seriously want a friggin perabyte HDD, simply so i don't have to constantly burn soooo many DVD's ( and Dual Layer discs are still to expensive for my liking ).

Though, it would SUCK to have a perabyte worth of files suddenly go Bye-bye, because the HDD died. I had a 120 gig HDD that was almost completly full. Well, the HD died on me, and i lost ALOT of stuff. ( in my defense, my old DVD burner was acting up on me, and i couldn't burn the stuff to DVD's ).

So its either we get realy large HDD's soon....or the price for HD-DVD's/Blue-ray DVD's and their burners drop in price SOON. Cause i could live with burning 50 gigs at once on a Blue-ray disc. the whole lack of HDD space wouldn't bother me so much ( for a few years, then i'd need a LARGER disc to burn to, or more HDD's ).

PS. i have nearly 500 gigs of space on my PC. and i'm burning stuff to DVD's on a weekly basis. because when you download files that are more than 1 gig in size at a time ( some pushing 30 - 40 gigs in size ), constant burning to DVD's is a MUST.


EDIT: Also, i don't see perabyte HDD's comming out any time soon. Though, i CAN see computers with 1+ perabytes on it in TOTAL. ( aka: multiple HDD's ). Plus, i wouldn't WANT EVERYTHING on a single drive anyways. windows slows down WAY to much when the HDD's its on is packed full, and constantly updating due to constant downloading, and deleting.

Edit 2: god..imagine how bad defragging a perabye drive would be. Especially when people download stuff like i do ( or download even MORE than i do )......speaking of which...i need to check my HDD's...see if they need to be defragged....looks like this thread at least HELPED someone remember to do something. heh.

 

[-_{MoW}_-Assasi]

Supernade owes ME $100

Anyway, yes, its just a matter of time

Ill try to b one of the first to jump on board

 

[Xaotic]

Yes, I can see this as an eventually occurring event, though probably not soon in single disks due to physical limitations. This is not due to the average sixpacks need for storage, most of them don't end up using all of the 80-200GB disks found in their systems now. The storage market is driven more by what enterprises need and then trickles down to the end users. Look at the high end SATA drives. Where do you see them used most often, in data centers in high end RAID enclosures. Hang 14 drives in RAID-5E and assuming one as a hot spare and two for parity information and you have a net of around 7.7TB of usable space after formatting. As companies need more space, this reduces the net cost of R&D and reduces per unit amortized cost and lowers the prices. Since lower end units typically have the same mechanicals with reduced platters, the benefits of higher end products are passed on to the enthusiast and sixpack level. Progress will continue. The rate of increase is the only major question.

 

[clocker2]

I voted "no" but neither option really describes the future I see coming.

My vision of the future has the home PC basically becoming just an access point to an online OS.
You'd rent whatever functionality and storage were useful to you and all maintenance/upkeep would be the provider's problem.

One of my co-workers has a terabyte fileserver which is his pride and joy.
Currently about 3/4 full, maintaining/backing up and organizing the data takes up more time than he spends actually enjoying the content.
I often wonder-"outside of the pride of accomplishment/ownership, what practical good does it do to have all this stuff stored?"

 

[MVC]

... My vision of the future has the home PC basically becoming just an access point to an online OS.
You'd rent whatever functionality and storage were useful to you and all maintenance/upkeep would be the provider's problem.

I've heard this a few time is the last few years, but I can't see it ever being the norm for a couple of reasons:

• First, if companies can't secure our credit card data would you really trust them to store all of your personal information?
• Second, Google's recent moves aside, companies tend to treat any data that they get their hands on as belonging to them. I don't think I want to transfer ownership rights to all of my files to some storage provider.

People want to own and control their own information. I know I want to own and control my own family photos, my banking records, the professional articles/papers I've written, etc.

I can see online storage becoming more popular, but it'll only be as a "share" folder so that you can access some information from different locations, but even for that ownership rights still need to favor the customer. Right now they don't, and I don't see that changing in the near future, unfortunately.

 

[attack]

"640kb ought to be enough for anybody."
The question is not if, but when.

 

[clocker2]

I've heard this a few time is the last few years, but I can't see it ever being the norm for a couple of reasons:

• First, if companies can't secure our credit card data would you really trust them to store all of your personal information?
• Second, Google's recent moves aside, companies tend to treat any data that they get their hands on as belonging to them. I don't think I want to transfer ownership rights to all of my files to some storage provider.

People want to own and control their own information. I know I want to own and control my own family photos, my banking records, the professional articles/papers I've written, etc.

I can see online storage becoming more popular, but it'll only be as a "share" folder so that you can access some information from different locations, but even for that ownership rights still need to favor the customer. Right now they don't, and I don't see that changing in the near future, unfortunately.

Although I see the validity of all your arguments, I would not consider you a typical PC user.
I work in a small PC repair shop and by far the most common use of my customers machines is email, internet surfing and storage of trivial files (New Folder1, New Folder2, ad nauseum).
This is BTW, not just grandma/pa I'm talking about- the generalization covers all age groups.
Since they are already ceding control of their email to the ISP, really have no sensitive data stored (mass media has done a fabulous job scaring folks about the dangers of "hackers") and demonstrate no inclination to learn even the rudiments of PC maintenance, the ability to just "sign on and surf" would be a blessing for them.

Admittedly, my impressions are formed from dealing with a self-selected sample (by walking in the door the customer has basically already admitted they are clueless), but it is nonetheless, a large group of folks.

Much like SUVs, I see the marketing of the PC to home users as a triumph of advertising.
Taking what is essentially a sophisticated business tool and foisting it off onto a untrained and unsupported home user worked well for hardware/software companies but not so well for the consumer.

Sure, they were familiar with the PC at work but ignorant of the role that IT played in maintaining the system- all they knew was that the PC turned on, they did whatever it was they did and when it didn't someone else came and took care of it. Furthermore, they weren't allowed to click "yes" and install any random bit of software that might be offered.

Now they get home, turn on the PC and are faced with a bewildering array of error messages, software/hardware conflicts, etc., and Bobby (the friendly and capable support guy at the office) is nowhere to be found (cause he's at home probably drinking himself into a stupor).

These folks (joe-sixpack?) would welcome and embrace the future I described and I'll bet sooner rather than later someone will make it so.

 

[MVC]

.... These folks (joe-sixpack?) would welcome and embrace the future I described and I'll bet sooner rather than later someone will make it so.

Oh, I don't doubt that someone will try to do it, and they may even be successful for a while--until something bad happens and continues to happen. Who paid any attention to "lost" data until identity theft became a major issue? This'll be the same. First a few files will go missing or get damaged and before you know it a lot of files will have been "lost." And, since the "users" didn't have any backups, guess who's going to be screaming for someone to "do something."

There isn't a thing any of us can do (individually) about the security of data others have collected about us (banks, credit agencies, government agencies, companies we do business with, google, etc.) but that doesn't mean we should become lax about our own security. Talk to anyone who's had his/her identity stolen and see how careful they now are about what information they give out.

Also, any digital files that are important should be backed up (and if they're very important backed up more than once). A single storage location, no matter how good, can still fail. I'm sure that any business providing storage would have some backup regime in place, but do you really want to risk the loss of your wedding photos, the first picture of your first grandchild? Some will play with fire and they will get burned, and once burned they will learn (hopefully).

As a side note, my son and daughter-in-law distributed complete sets of their wedding photos to several family members because a) we all wanted copies, but also b) in case they ever "loose" their "originals" the rest of us have copies we can give them. They're doing the same with all the pics they're taking of my first grandchild--at least five of us have "backups" just in case something bad happens to their copies.

With digital data redundancy is just as important as security and I just cant foresee online storage meeting either requirement.

 

[hyperasus]

Seems like a silly poll to me. Of coarse we will always need more and more storage. I mean seriously.... what about when we start ripping those BlueRay and HD DVDs to hard drive LOL.

 

[Bios24]

Seems like a silly poll to me. Of coarse we will always need more and more storage. I mean seriously.... what about when we start ripping those BlueRay and HD DVDs to hard drive LOL.

That's kind of what I was thinking, I can't believe half of the people don't think we'll eventually have petabyte disk drives. Now it will probably be almost 10 years before we see one, but they are definitly coming. No doubts about that. And just think- in 40 years we'll probably have yottabyte drives!

 

[damarble]

I voted yes. Not today, not in 5 years, but it will happen. The same way people didn't think we could ever fill a 1gb hard drive, we are seeing that again.

 

[Slaps]

I donno if i will every have enough porn to justify a petabyte.

 

[Neuromancer]

That's kind of what I was thinking, I can't believe half of the people don't think we'll eventually have petabyte disk drives. Now it will probably be almost 10 years before we see one, but they are definitly coming. No doubts about that. And just think- in 40 years we'll probably have yottabyte drives!

I voted no.

But I took the survey to mean sometime soon, like a decade or so. I also took the survey to mean desktop PCs. So thats a definite no. If the question is will we EVER have PB storage, thats just ridiculous and there would be no point in making a poll for that. Of course we will. Eventually we will have Ipods with PB storage and hold like 10,000 QP3's hee hee (wont be using mp3 by that point so...)

For enterprise situations, most major businesses already utilize PBs of storage, rapid share is one example. I wouldnt be surprised to find out that some uberlarge companies have EBs of space available.