Saw A 2 Terabyte External Drive

[sbk]

Just got an email from buy.com for a 2 tb external hd for $110 US. Wow. I realize that hard drives are getting bigger and cheaper but still. wow. 2TB. wish this ad had come out while I was still there. Although what I would do with a 2 TB hard drive i have no idea.

How high can they go? and do you think solid state drives will ever replace hard drives? And will they get cheaper like hard drives have?

[Wolfie]

2TB is the largest ive seen for an external drive, but i guess it wont be long before we start seeing 3 and 4 TB drives.

Those SSD's will eventually get to those sizes, but right now they are still considerably smaller (and a lot more expensive)

[balo]

Every year the drives gets bigger and bigger.

It will never stop , next year maybe 5TB , then 100TB . I still remember back in 1988 when the worlds first 1GB Harddrive was introduced . It was shocking news to us since we only had 40MB drives back then.

[SamritT]

Soon you will get a 2TB thumb drive for that price.

[neverdie]

You must be keeping some big files on people there sbk .

It might just be me, but I have chosen to go with smaller drives & keep copies of the important stuff on two seperate ones, that way, if one gets stolen,lost, destroyed or goes 'POOF' then I still have a copy on the other drive.

2TB is alot of storage.

[Tywais]

Seagate has a 3GB plan for release this year and 4GB expected in 2011 claimed by Hitachi. 3TB Seagate. Of course availability in Thailand may be a few months off.

The problems is the LBA as it was currently designed for DOS. With that said, Long LBA addressing will need to be applied to get around the capacity lock, requiring 64-bit versions of Windows 7 and Windows Vista, and modified versions of Linux.

More details on problems to be solved.

[angiud]

According to this article published by Gizmag, scientists in a lab have "successfully recorded data at around eight times the density of currently available hard disk drives".

So in the next years what today is 2 Tb will became 16

[dave_boo]

There is a limit as to far as how much they can pack into a given area (areal density). They've bumped up against it before, but did fancy tricks like perpendicular recording. The (very smart) engineers are working at circumventing these problems, but eventually they'll run out of ideas.

At that point I can see crazy solutions such as 2x2,5" heads inside of 3,5" drives (set up in a raid array; you of course could do the 2x3,5" inside of 5,25").

SSDs should already have replaced most smart people's boot drive. Eventually Moore's law will bring down prices for decent performance. Even now there are 3,5" Terabyte model SSD (don't look at the link if you don't want sticker shock). Much as processors are being produced on ever smaller scale, so will the SSD. Smaller scale means more transistors in the same space. More transistors means more storage.

[sbk]

You must be keeping some big files on people there sbk .

good to know you read my post all the way through

Although what I would do with a 2 TB hard drive i have no idea.

[BWPattaya]

I remember buying my first computer. It had, what was then a pretty big disk, 850 Mb. This week I bought a thumb drive with 8Gb for just over 400 Bt.

[neverdie]

You must be keeping some big files on people there sbk .

good to know you read my post all the way through

Although what I would do with a 2 TB hard drive i have no idea.

Ohhhh I did mother, but I have no answers to your questions, BUT, you know me I like to contribute and all that. Was wondering why you might be looking for so much storage space......put 2 & 2 together and got 25. I also think, that despite what dave boo said, this sort of thing will never end, you will probably carry about 100TB of storage engraved on your fingernail one day, there seems to be virtually no limits to technology.

I also wanted you to think outside the box when it came to storing stuff, hence the other part of my post, the bit you didnt quote

ps: of course your one line above is just a 'cover' i can read between the lines

[basjke]

Not so long ago I spoke with a guy who sells manufacturing systems to the Semi conductor manufacturers.Western Digital is one of his customers and he told me that they have the knowhow already to produce a 10 Tb disk.

[grin]

The 2 TB Fantom GreenDrive on sale at buy.com is a great deal for $110. I bought the 1 TB version about two years ago from buy.com for $79 after rebate and have been extremely happy with it. It seems to be quite reliable and it is the quietest drive I have ever owned.

[thaimite]

My first computer was a special order with the 20MB Hard disk option The shop told me I was crazy and could never fill the standard 10MB. Obviously they did not reckon with the skills of MS:rolleyes:

Now I have 10TB of NAS plus various portable drives

disk space is like cupboard space, You will always fill all you have and want more

[angiud]

I remember I got my first HDD for my Mac Plus (1024 K Ram), a 20 Mb with same footprint size of the mac for 1,500,000 Italian Lire ( now for sure over 1.500 Euro)

[craigt3365]

Here is one I almost bought a few months ago:

http://www.frys.com/product/5996814?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

6TB. Crazy. Instead, I bought a 2TB Western Digital for about $180. I have had good luck with Western Digital products, not so good luck with cheaper brands. My data is important, so getting the cheapest is not always the best answer. If it crashes, everything is lost.

I also have a 1.5TB as a backup, and a 1TB connected to my Western Digital Live device for watching movies. I'm trying to get the WD Live device networked so I can get rid of the 1TB.

Why such big drives? I download movies (>800GB) and music (>100GB). And have about 50GB of pictures from my various trips. I try to download only high def movies. They are big files. I am a movie nut...and "live" TV is usually not showing something I would like to watch (I also have the True PVR).

If you want to talk about history, I got one of the first IBM PC/ATs to be delivered in Los Angeles in 1984. It was big money back then. I was told by the owner of the company to drive up to IBM's office and to be CAREFUL on the way back. No accidents!

We were jazzed it had a 1.2MB floppy drive. Many of our existing PC/XTs only had floppy drives, a few had 10MB hard drives. The AT also had a 20MB hard drive. Wow!!! But it sure beat the trash-80s we use to play with...memories...

[cali]

Isn't it quaint to see occasional queries asking "should i buy a hard drive now or wait for SSD". Folks, SSD is a 1950’s technology and the price gap is too great to make SSD a viable HD replacement for the general user. For the price of a 1TB SSD, you can buy a really nice brand new computer equipped with a multi-terabyte hard drive so there’s why SSD will continue to live in the shadow of the hard drive. SSD is losing momentum in closing the price gap and is floundering as to what to do next. Meanwhile hard drives will ratchet up to 10TB using a minor tweak called shingled magnetic recording (SMR) and the roadmap to 100TB and beyond is there using bit-patterned recording (BPR), heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), and more. Hard drives will continue to steamroll over SSD over our lifetime. I don’t know why some people find that threatening and want to argue with it, but history and future projections say hard drives is where your data will be stored well into the future--spinning on a mechanical disk.

[newtronbom]

That quote by thaimite "disk space is like cupboard space, you will always fill all you have and want more" has to be a classic! I never imagined that I would fill 1TB of HD either, but I have in under 6 months....I d-load lots of HD movies too - 2 to 6 GBs a flick usually - and always tell myself I am only "keeping the very best" of them to watch again, which I seldom find time to do, as there are just so many good movies out there now. I have a liking for good old Westerns (and good new ones), many of which are now digitally remastered. I keep ISOs of all my expensive software like Autodesk Maya @ 3500 US$, Alias Automotive @ 4600 US$ and Alias Design @ 4600 US$ and at these prices who would trust it to a few DVDs, which can be damaged or stolen. I have over 120 GBs of ISO images, 300+ in movies, 50+ in music and 200 in various files that I need to keep, plus a 245 GB compressed system/file backup on a separate drive as backup and a 140 GB compressed file backup on yet another drive! I will need at least another 2TBs by early next year at this rate! Talking of old computers, I seem to remember way back in the late 70s, I had one called an "Amstrad" ?? 8 MB total mem on a "car cassette - no HD"?? and it took me 3 days to program into it a "Space Invaders like game" from a book that came with it. Does anyone remember those? Yeah. Things have sure changed alright. I now have 8 GBs just in ram, but needed the expensive 64 bit Win7 Ultmt to be able to use it all...........

[basjke]

Isn't it quaint to see occasional queries asking "should i buy a hard drive now or wait for SSD". Folks, SSD is a 1950’s technology and the price gap is too great to make SSD a viable HD replacement for the general user. For the price of a 1TB SSD, you can buy a really nice brand new computer equipped with a multi-terabyte hard drive so there’s why SSD will continue to live in the shadow of the hard drive. SSD is losing momentum in closing the price gap and is floundering as to what to do next. Meanwhile hard drives will ratchet up to 10TB using a minor tweak called shingled magnetic recording (SMR) and the roadmap to 100TB and beyond is there using bit-patterned recording (BPR), heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), and more. Hard drives will continue to steamroll over SSD over our lifetime. I don’t know why some people find that threatening and want to argue with it, but history and future projections say hard drives is where your data will be stored well into the future--spinning on a mechanical disk.

Ever considered that thos SSD queries could have to do with durability?I know they are soon able to produce a 10 Tb disk and it will expand in the future but at the cost of what?The answer is durability.

Imn the past 16 months I had four 1.5 Tb harddisks fail on me.Coincidence?I don't think so.Watch at how the warrantees have come down from 5 years to 3 years on the 1.5 and 2 Tb disks.

Of course 5 year warranty is still possible but the price is more then double.A 2 Tb western 3 year is 3.890 Baht while a 2 Tb seagate 5 year is almost 9000 Baht.

[RedNIvar]

Cost/GB for a SSD will never come close to beating a HDD. I think the market now realizes that SSD is not HDD replacement. However SSD has a unique market that HDD can not compete with especially when dealing with smaller devices, and usage at extreme altitudes and temp. There is also a strong demand for SSD in the medical and defense industries.

You also need to realize that everyone who purchases a SSD, will also end up purchasing an external HDD. HDD cost/GB is low compared to SSD and using SSD for large data storage for long periods is just not that wise.

Companies like WD have gone ahead and purchased a SSD company as there is a growing market here. A new market not a replacement market. It's just a matter of time before we start seeing hybrid drives that have a SSD combined with a HDD to utilize the benefits of both these technologies.

As for storage, I have a couple of WDTV Live that is hooked up to my HDTV sets. I only download HD quality or bluray movies. Each movie can be anywhere from 6 to10GB. I have close to 6TB worth of movies, music and pictures. The wife has her selection of movies and series, my son has his selection of cartoons and movies and I have my own. Trust me, you'll find a way to use up the additional storage.

[astral]

What could you use it for??

All my films and music are on Hard disk, currently 2 x 500Gb Sony drives that will fit in my shirt pocket.

Very convenient for moving between the computer and the TV setup.

Also small enough to go in my bag when I travel, no external power gubbins to carry.

I am looking for a backup drive, I would hate to loose my archive.

The biggest I have seen advertised is 1.5Tb

Looking at the statistics for one of the torrent sites they are talking about

transfers in Petabytes Pb, that is 1000 terabytes.

[billd766]

I remember buying my first computer. It had, what was then a pretty big disk, 850 Mb. This week I bought a thumb drive with 8Gb for just over 400 Bt.

My first company computer back in 1988 was a Toshiba 1100 with one floppy drive and a whole 2 MB of memory which was replaced 3 months later by a Toshiba 1200 with 2 yes two floppy drives but still the 2 MB of hard drive.

Ah the good old days

[astral]

Oh, you babes in arms.

The first computer I used back in 1965, took up a whole room,

and only had 8K of memory, no storage at all.

Programmes were loaded, and results returned on punch tape, like the Telex machine.

The compiler took half the 8K, so if you had a large programme, it had to be compiled first

to machine code, output on tape, and then reloaded without the complier to get access to all the memory.

The machine was an Elliot 803, and the compiler was ALGOL 60

[craigt3365]

Oh, you babes in arms.

The first computer I used back in 1965, took up a whole room,

and only had 8K of memory, no storage at all.

Programmes were loaded, and results returned on punch tape, like the Telex machine.

The compiler took half the 8K, so if you had a large programme, it had to be compiled first

to machine code, output on tape, and then reloaded without the complier to get access to all the memory.

The machine was an Elliot 803, and the compiler was ALGOL 60

I remember algol. My first computer classes in college with with tape and cards. I use to run a job which would print out "I LOVE YOU" on cards. The GF was mighty impressed. Remember the Teletype Model 33? Dang, that's a long time ago....

[billd766]

Oh, you babes in arms.

The first computer I used back in 1965, took up a whole room,

and only had 8K of memory, no storage at all.

Programmes were loaded, and results returned on punch tape, like the Telex machine.

The compiler took half the 8K, so if you had a large programme, it had to be compiled first

to machine code, output on tape, and then reloaded without the complier to get access to all the memory.

The machine was an Elliot 803, and the compiler was ALGOL 60

You are old Father Time the young (66) man said.

[astral]

You are old Father Time the young (66) man said.

True, I collect my pension in 18 months, God willing.

[KRS1]

how about 2 TB in a SD card...now that's a shock, and already exist also.

[Tywais]

how about 2 TB in a SD card...now that's a shock, and already exist also.

The standard (SDXC) was released in 2009 and the file format (exFAT) from Microsoft. Current SDHC is limited to 32GB due to the previous standard. New cards using SDXC at 32 & 64 GB was only announced at CES 2010 and possible release of 2 TB is not planned until 2011. Curious as to where you saw already released 2 TB SD cards, or are you referring to prototypes?

BTW - the speed specs are 104 MBps.

[KRS1]

Toshiba has released samples and will start 'full' production in Dec 2010.

Major distributors or people in industries requiring these capacities have already received them for testing.

[Naam]

I remember I got my first HDD for my Mac Plus (1024 K Ram), a 20 Mb with same footprint size of the mac for 1,500,000 Italian Lire ( now for sure over 1.500 Euro)

my first harddrive for an Atari was 999 Deutsch Marks (600 US-Dollars) with a 10mb capacity. in 1994 i bought a PC with two drives each 1 gigabyte, cost 495 US-Dollars EACH.