When will we get a 1 pedabyte hd?

[dragos240]

We now have 2 TB hds. When will we get 1 PB hds? Your estimates?

[Tipped OuT]

15-20 years.

[bodyharvester]

when i was on WinXP (long ago) my music folder said it was 2PB's

my estimate, within 5 years

[hessiess]

More lickly to happen with solid state media.

[NovaAesa]

12 years would follow the exponential trend. (i.e. 1TB HDDs now, 1GB hdd 12 years ago, 1PB HDD 12 years from now).

[chriskin]

when i was on WinXP (long ago) my music folder said it was 2PB's

my estimate, within 5 years
+1
i would go with around 5 as well (or 7-8 in a pessimistic view)

[ChrT]

My accumulated collection of legally and illegally downloaded media from the last four years amounts to five terabytes. Unless we switch to a 10000p HD resolution and it becomes to standard for internet file-sharing (and invent connections fast enough to transfer it within a lifetime), I just don't see the need. With that said, I'm probably suffering from severe lack of foresight here, so 12 years sounds about right.

[Paqman]

I don't think we're ever likely to see a petabyte magnetic drive. If SSD's follow Moore's Law we should see a PB SSD in about 18 years.

[The Real Dave]

I don't think we're ever likely to see a petabyte magnetic drive. If SSD's follow Moore's Law we should see a PB SSD in about 18 years.

+1. A magnetic drive would just need too many platters, generate too much heat etc. Were already toeing the edge of how many bits of data we can squeeze onto one disk. SSD however is much more promising. I reckon maybe 15-20 years, taking into account that SSD's are still pretty new technology wise

[SomeGuyDude]

As Cloud computing becomes more and more ubiquitous, the rage will be all about seeing how SMALL of a drive you need.

[Marlonsm]

I say we'll never get a 1Pb HD, not a widely-available one.

SSDs are getting better and cheaper every day, so the next step is not bigger storages (why would you need a million Gbs in your computer?),it's changing from HDs to SSDs, making them faster and more efficient, after that, we can get a 1Pb SSD, by them, HDs will be outdated, I'd say it'll take at least a decade before a normal user can have a 1Pb computer without paying a lot for it. By them we'll have ultra-high definition videos, maybe 3D... and 1Tb will not be enough anymore.

And also, with internet connection getting faster and reaching more places many people will just keep most files in the cloud, not needing a big storage space.

Meanwhile... I'm using 80 of the 160Gb my HD has.

[dragos240]

I say we'll never get a 1Pb HD, not a widely-available one.

SSDs are getting better and cheaper every day, so the next step is not bigger storages (why would you need a million Gbs in your computer?),it's changing from HDs to SSDs, making them faster and more efficient, after that, we can get a 1Pb SSD, by them, HDs will be outdated, I'd say it'll take at least a decade before a normal user can have a 1Pb computer without paying a lot for it. By them we'll have ultra-high definition videos, maybe 3D... and 1Tb will not be enough anymore.

And also, with internet connection getting faster and reaching more places many people will just keep most files in the cloud, not needing a big storage space.

Meanwhile... I'm using 80 of the 160Gb my HD has.

To my knowledge, 1 PB is 1024 TBs. Am I correct?

[dragos240]

As Cloud computing becomes more and more ubiquitous, the rage will be all about seeing how SMALL of a drive you need.

Cloud computing? Who needs it (my opinion).

[PurposeOfReason]

12 years would follow the exponential trend. (i.e. 1TB HDDs now, 1GB hdd 12 years ago, 1PB HDD 12 years from now).
What you just described is a function that would be piecewise function being exponential function for 12 years and then linear for the next 12 going from the slope of the (y2-y1)/12.

Just sayin.

[CJ Master]

To my knowledge, 1 PB is 1024 TBs. Am I correct?

Wikipedia is your friend. ;)

[hanzomon4]

As Cloud computing becomes more and more ubiquitous, the rage will be all about seeing how SMALL of a drive you need.

+1 although I foresee the cloud becoming a connection to a central location in your home... like a server that you just click next to setup.

[hobo14]

I say we'll never get a 1Pb HD, not a widely-available one.

SSDs are getting better and cheaper every day, so the next step is not bigger storages (why would you need a million Gbs in your computer?),it's changing from HDs to SSDs, making them faster and more efficient, after that, we can get a 1Pb SSD, by them, HDs will be outdated, I'd say it'll take at least a decade before a normal user can have a 1Pb computer without paying a lot for it. By them we'll have ultra-high definition videos, maybe 3D... and 1Tb will not be enough anymore.

And also, with internet connection getting faster and reaching more places many people will just keep most files in the cloud, not needing a big storage space.

Meanwhile... I'm using 80 of the 160Gb my HD has.
Anyone remember when hard drives were just a few meg?
I you'd suggested 1TB drives then, people would have laughed in your face. Seriously.

Two things drive our increase in data consumption:

- Moore's Law giving us more processing power. Game developers always have, and always will use all the processing power they can, and often push for specs beyond current norms. That means bigger games.
When I was a kid, a game on 5 floppy disks was huge. Now a 5 GB game doesn't even raise an eyebrow. That's > *1,000,000 (non-linear, obviously) size increase in 15 years.

- Increased internet speeds. If the government has it's way here, I will soon go from a 1Mb connection to 100Mb. A few years ago I was on dialup.



A breakthough putting quantum computers on peoples desks will also massively increase disk sizes.

As for cloud computing, it will never replace all our local storage and proccessing, because we can't solve the latency problem without going faster than light, and it (by definition) can't be as reliable as your own PC (if either the server or your PC goes down you're screwed)

[hobo14]

What you just described is a function that would be piecewise function being exponential function for 12 years and then linear for the next 12 going from the slope of the (y2-y1)/12.

Just sayin.

Er, no it wouldn't. He described a fully exponential fn.
If the second half was linear he would have said we would get ~~2 TB in 12 years.

[Marlonsm]

To my knowledge, 1 PB is 1024 TBs. Am I correct?
Right, always you go one step up, you multiply by 1024 (2^10), so 1 Petabyte = 1024 Terabytes = 1048576 Gb = 1073741824 Mb and so on...




Anyone remember when hard drives were just a few meg?
I you'd suggested 1TB drives then, people would have laughed in your face. Seriously.

Two things drive our increase in data consumption:

- Moore's Law giving us more processing power. Game developers always have, and always will use all the processing power they can, and often push for specs beyond current norms. That means bigger games.
When I was a kid, a game on 5 floppy disks was huge. Now a 5 GB game doesn't even raise an eyebrow. That's > *1,000,000 (non-linear, obviously) size increase in 15 years.

- Increased internet speeds. If the government has it's way here, I will soon go from a 1Mb connection to 100Mb. A few years ago I was on dialup.



A breakthough putting quantum computers on peoples desks will also massively increase disk sizes.

As for cloud computing, it will never replace all our local storage and proccessing, because we can't solve the latency problem without going faster than light, and it (by definition) can't be as reliable as your own PC (if either the server or your PC goes down you're screwed)

Right, 10 years ago we couldn't imagine how fast computers would be today, and we can't be sure about how they will be in 10 years. My bet is that the processing power (along with memory, storage, graphics power...) will stop growing so fast.

There is a big difference from a Pentium 3 to an Athlon X2 when surfing the web, but the difference isn't so big and noticeable when you go from the Athlon to a Core i7. Most people just don't need, nor use, all this power.

Computers today are moving towards mobility, with laptops getting lighter, having a longer battery life and a better connection with the internet, and that's what most users want and need. Instead of getting power-hungry CPUs like the Pentium 4, we are now getting power-saving CPUs like the Atom, low-power Core 2 Duos, even ARMs, that aren't lots of times faster than the Pentium, but allow the computer to be much more portable and last longer before you need to recharge it.

Same goes to storage, instead of getting bigger and bigger, it'll get more portable and efficient.

At least, that's my opinion...

[doas777]

We now have 2 TB hds. When will we get 1 PB hds? Your estimates?

depends on whether your talking business market or consumer market.

we already have pB san arrays if you're made of money, but they are always many many disks. since multiple disks are an advantage on numerous levels, it will be a long time before it is a good idea to put that much on a single physical disk.

on the comsumer side we went from megabyte scale hdds to gB ones in over 8-10 years. from gB to tB in 12 or so, so I guess we're into the 18-20 year time frame.

[PurposeOfReason]

Er, no it wouldn't. He described a fully exponential fn.
If the second half was linear he would have said we would get ~~2 TB in 12 years.
Maybe I'm reading this wrong.

1GB to 1TB is a growth of 1000x, taking 12 years growing more rapidly each year. Let's say we started with a slope of 1/5 and ended at 1/2. So now we are going to do the same growth of 1000x over 12 years, but we're starting with a slope of 1/2. That would take less time then 12 years.

[hobo14]

No, the same growth (1 TB - 1 GB ~~ 1 TB) will take less than 12 years.

[PurposeOfReason]

No, the same growth (1 TB - 1 GB ~~ 1 TB) will take less than 12 years.
That's what I'm getting at, he said it would take 12 which would not be exponential.

[hobo14]

You don't get it. The growth in the first 12 years is approx 1 TB. The growth in the second 12 years is approx 1 PB.

The fn is (approx): 1024^(x/12) --> exponential growth

[PurposeOfReason]

I stand corrected then, I was just judging it off of a growth of 1000, I feel foolish now.

[hobo14]

Right, 10 years ago we couldn't imagine how fast computers would be today, and we can't be sure about how they will be in 10 years. My bet is that the processing power (along with memory, storage, graphics power...) will stop growing so fast.

There is a big difference from a Pentium 3 to an Athlon X2 when surfing the web, but the difference isn't so big and noticeable when you go from the Athlon to a Core i7. Most people just don't need, nor use, all this power.

Computers today are moving towards mobility, with laptops getting lighter, having a longer battery life and a better connection with the internet, and that's what most users want and need. Instead of getting power-hungry CPUs like the Pentium 4, we are now getting power-saving CPUs like the Atom, low-power Core 2 Duos, even ARMs, that aren't lots of times faster than the Pentium, but allow the computer to be much more portable and last longer before you need to recharge it.

Same goes to storage, instead of getting bigger and bigger, it'll get more portable and efficient.

At least, that's my opinion...

There's no sign of us failing to follow the power increase associated with Moore's Law yet. Intel have just shown off 22nm tech chips, and even if they can't keep shrinking, they'll keep adding cores.

I think your first two paragraphs are way, way off. People have been saying similar stuff for decades.

Not everyone needs huge, cutting edge stuff (my next computer will be an ARM netbook) but some do, and they will continue to push hardware developers, and that will drag the rest of us along behind them.

[CJ Master]

I just can't wait for Hologram storage. :)

[LookTJ]

I just can't wait for Hologram storage. :)
Holographic? I was under the impression that was optical only.

I can't wait for it either

[dragos240]

I just can't wait for Hologram storage. :)

Are we talking about that 1tb optical disk?

[LookTJ]

Are we talking about that 1tb optical disk?
That's what I'm asking, Hopefully we can get our hands on it soon, later this year maybe.

And it's 300GB according to Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_drive

:)

EDIT: Nevermind, I see future versions hold 1.6TB