Will a 1PB drive ever be a household object?

Was having a discussion (okay, argument) today with a friend about this, so just thought I'd throw this out there to see what you guys think.



I think a lot of people out there (on boards in particular, as I'd imagine you guys are more tech-savvy than the average Joe Soap, especially if you're on this forum) have 1TB drives, either internal or external, for their Desktops or laptops.


Now, two years ago, I'd have laughed at how ridiculous it would be for anyone to ever own a 1TB drive. Currently, I have three of them (one used for backups, but that's beside the point).


With Microsoft now pushing games out online and trying to really get their gamers buying games direct from XBox LIVE, websites that are huge in the US (netflix i think it's called?) renting out films (i believe they actually post it out to you, but i think that will only last so long before it dies out) and the huge (and obvious) rise in popularity of downloading music (both legally and not so legally) I think it's safe to say that the average home user could indeed rack up 1TB of data before even realising it.


With the net only going to get faster and more dominant in day to day living, with more services and products being available (and preferred) online and the general idea that it's taking over from human interaction (ala bebo, myspace, etc.) do you think there will be a point in the next ten or fifteen years, when Petabytes will actually be a consumer product, that Joe Soap can pick up in DID or Harvey's?


Or do you think that file sizes and so forth will just keep getting smaller and smaller, and thus people will never really have any kind of need for anything bigger than 1TB in their lifetime?



Just curious to hear other people's thoughts.:)

Biggins

I use 1.5 TB's myself but I don't see a time of using anything larger for some time yet.

To be honest, I'm starting to get afraid of using anything larger for a simple reason.
The larger the drive (and the data on it, the longer it takes to back up) the more data/files on it.
The fear of just trusting all that to just one drive (and they DO fail sometimes or eventually given age) is too much of a risk.
At present, I use 1.5 TB to back-up family pics, video etc but I also have another as a back-up of same data!

I do not look forwards to trying to back-up anything larger even though I'm sure by that stage, if ever, speed will have hopefully improved.

Just food for thought...

joePC

I would say its inevitable, storage demands keep growing everyday - we went from 2.44mb Floppy discs to Terabyte drives in 15 or so years, In the next 15 Terabyte to Petabyte doesnt sound unlikley - As for transfer rates optical based USB 3 from intel looks impressive.

EKRIUQ

In the Cern laboratory there collecting there information in Petrabytes, they need it but for the common person its hard to imagine what you would need a Petrabyte of information for , you'd nearly need a google search type engine to find any thing.Possible in the future servers will be built into houses and just put a Petrabyte for memory storage for CCTV, movies and libraries.

alansweeney100

I should think as our internet connections improve streaming content will become even more popular. This would reduce the need for downloading & storing certain data/media

snappieT

By the time 1PB drives come along, I seriously doubt there'll be any mechanical component to them, or if they would even be called drives anymore.
A computer with 1PB of secondary storage in a domestic setting. Sure.

Overheal

Robocop ran on 4MB of Ram. In the 80s. And it was considered unfathommable.

Yes we'll have ****ing PB drives. Are you mad?

Voodu Child

As far as computer speeds and capacities go, in time, everything is inevitable. (Thats until you start hitting brick walls related to the size of electrons and stuff.)

Some guys are saying 1PB in a domestic environment is madness, but sure 1TB would have seemed madness 15 years ago. I think back then 1GB drives were just gaining popularity or affordability.

I can't think what you would need a 1PB drive for, but then, 15 years ago I couldn't have imagined downloading 720p or 1080p movies from the internet.

So maybe there will be some kind of 3D or holographic movies that take up terabytes of space each :pac:

Overheal

Sure I remember when Zip and Jaz drives came out. They were considered phenominal.

swirlser

It would be naive to think storage in any and every capacity will not continue to grow.

And fyi, light peak was developed by Apple, not Intel. Apple had a choice of making it the next firewire step, continuing to piss all over USB and 98% of the world not caring because USB is the standard. Manufacturers would continue to stick with the free USB tech, no matter how much faster the alternative (free>not free, every time). So Apple made the call to hand it over to Intel...

Orion

Only a few years ago 1TB was the province of large companies. Now I have a few TB around the house. I am old enough to remember a 16kb computer with a dual 1.44" floppy drive being state of the art and I'm under 40. I predict we will see PB storage in a domestic setting in our lifetime. File sizes are not getting smaller - they're getting bigger. Videos are going hi-def, music is going lossless, etc. 1PB is not in the realms of imagination.

jhegarty

I remember reading an article on the new P75 (75mhz pentium processor) back in 1996.

The conclusion was that a home user would never need such a fast machine , and it would only ever be needed by graphic artists , or on servers.

We will have 1PB drives, and I bet 20% of it will be used by time you have installed windows 9 and office 2020.

deep1

When i bought my 1st smart phone Nokia 7650 that had 4mb of internal memory and that seemed a lot, Now 32Gb is not enough.

Yes we will definately see 1PB drives, but i think in near future all storage will be on online servers so people have access to their data remotely and goggle have already started that.

Cabaal

It'll happen eventually, back when I got my first harddrive a 500MB drive 1TB was considered crazy and who would need it?

I now have 4.5TB

I'd say we'll see 1PB in 10-15 years

death1234567

I would say that yes a 1 PB drive could be a household item but by the time its needed/developed most people will be storing their files on the internet via cloud computing. That way MicroScum or Google will hold your data and back it up for you and whenever you need it you just stream it off the interweb. Your games will run online via an Onlive type service and if you wish you could download your photos/files etc to a local device but the need for a large amount of storage on local devices would be minimal as the uploading to the cloud would always be close at hand...


Oh and we'll all live in cities on the Moon,

monkeypants

death1234567 wrote: »

Oh and we'll all live in cities on the Moon,

Weren't we supposed to be doing that by 1999?

There's been such an explosion of data into the mainstream in the past decade, starting with MP3s and then expanding further with digital cameras becoming so commonplace. I think that we'll need the storage, but it will be in some other form, either cloud or something that we haven't even thought of yet.

But as has been said before, with every storage device, you need another as a backup. It can become so time consuming.

DevilsBreath

I wana see a Yottabyte drive, now that would be cool.

1 Yottabyte = 1099511627776 Terabytes.

Back on topic though, Ye I can see it happening. Sure just look at the size of USB keys at the moment. Also have any of ye heard of the tests there doing with a particular algae that can hold electrical charges, IE a HDD that will grow by its self.

ve

Macros42 wrote: »

I am old enough to remember a 16kb computer with a dual 1.44" floppy drive being state of the art and I'm under 40..

Was it not 2 x 5.25" floppies in those machines, one for OS, other for apps/utilities. I'm under 30, so probably wrong. On topic though I don't believe in over estmating technological advancements. I look forward to what the future holds. 50 years ago you would probably have been put in to psychiatric care if you ranted on aboutwhat is possible by todays standards. Today we have learned from our mistakes, so if anything its probably how society has evolved as opposed to technology itself.

Orion

ve wrote: »

Was it not 2 x 5.25" floppies in those machines, one for OS, other for apps/utilities. I'm under 30, so probably wrong.

Doh - yes it is 2 x 5.25". Still have the thing. No idea if it still works tho.

Ginger

I see myself with own storage (9TB and growing) that I need more and more space. I replaced a lot of my drives lately with 1.5TB disks and will probably add a couple of new 2TB disks next year.. It will jump towards petabye level storage in our lifetime I would imagine.

RIght now on my keyring I have an 8GB flash drive which has more capacity than than my first computer (its had 1.5 and that was freaking huge in 1996.. it was a P166 and 16Megs of RAM) And its only a fraction of the cost. 32GB flash disks are the norm.

Even look at RAM, I have 4GB its not above average but 2 or 3 years ago it was a lot (this machine is 5 years old now). A lot of people are building dev machines with 12+GB in there (SharePoint 2010 requires 8 or so!)

Dual core was server only for a long time, now its standard, even quad core tech is standard. One of the servers for MS corp meeting had 196 cores in it.

Everything gets smaller and faster and higher capacity. SSD is coming along in leaps and bounds getting faster and higher capacities whiile also getting cheaper.

If you compare 2000 tech with now, things that are standard werent back then. Camera phones, touch screen tech at home, smart phones, netbooks etc.

Even screens 14"vga CRT were standard, I have 3 24" on my desk and think I could use another. GFX cards now are more powerful than machines 5-10 years ago and only getting quicker.

All progression.. as the saying goes, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic - Arthur C Clarke

Blazer

the hell with the future...I want my petabyte drive now..:mad:

Kevster

I'm only using a 40GB main hard-drive here; but I do have a backup 500GB external one too). I find it easy to work with the 40Gb one, as it means I have to manage my disk better than I [probably] would with a much larger one.

Effluo

"Necessity is the mother of invention"
From that we can only speculate whether we would need that amount of storage, we can only speculate whether if it would even be in our own home or not.

If we could make use of it you can bet your house on it being widespread. Just like everything else

robinph

I've vague recollections of working on repairing 9" floppy drive units in one of my first jobs, and there was a huge 100MB drive unit that we had as well, huge being the size of a chest of draws. It only had two of the platters still in it as we kept on throwing things at it when it was spun up to see where they would land in the workshop, only had the drive for the repair of returned boards though.