New kind of hard drive coming soon!

It seems that all this storagage tech is never ending, this will definately be coming out in the next couple of years or sooner and uses perpendicular recording to squeeze more data into a smaller space. Hitachi have achieved 230Gigs per square inch which is a lot, new laptops could have easily have terrabyte storage within a short period of time! cant wait

news.bbc.co.uk...

the way technology is evolving, don`t be surprised if u`ll see a hdd that has atleast 1 terrabyte in a few years

damn ill never be able to keep up with this stuff

Mega-large capacity hard-drives is intriguing to say the least but we need larger and faster CPU's to keep up with all this storage space.

I'd like to see at least a 1K-bit processor operating at 1 terahertz to go along with these T HDD's.

Just think, companies will be selling cheap computers with 16 GB of RAM in less than five years.

Sound insane? Check this out:

--> Macintoss Classic (1990): 1 MB RAM, expandable to 4 MB

--> Macintosh G4 "Graphite" Tower (2000): 128 MB RAM, expandable to 1.5 GB

At this rate, by the year 2010, we'll have computers with 16384 MB of RAM (16.4 GB).

[edit on 4/6/2005 by diehard_democrat]

Just how much more gig do I need to keep my MSWord files etc?

Guess I would have to fill it with videos. otherwise its gee wizz technology that actualy doesn't make much of a real world difference. Like who actually has 2500 songs?

Originally posted by Netchicken
Like who actually has 2500 songs?

I do, for one. *Waves pirate flag*

Your assertion is valid, though. With current normal file-sizes, the average consumer doesn't need anywhere near a Terabyte of storage space. However, by the time such technology is widely available, file sizes will likely be bigger. People no longer have use for floppy disks, though at the time of their conception they were able to store a very large amount of files. With larger storage capability comes larger things to store!

Oh, I've got a Mac Classic myself. Forgot to mention that it has a harddrive capacity of 40 MB, a piece of junk processor, and it's got a black and white screen. Yet it starts up faster than any other computer on the market today!

And ClarisWorks (typing application) only takes up a couple of MB harddrive space. Just something cool you probably didn't know.

Oh the need will be here soon enough for such large scale storage devices. For staters anyone ever create an MS Access database of any size? They get honkin big very fast, to the point that you have to have a USB device or CDR to move it off the computer if there is no network connection. Lets not forget the TIVO units that let you record TV, those all need massive hard drives to fit the data on them. Heck even the ATS servers will eventually need storage on that level give the rate of expansion.

Basically this just reinforces the idea that we are poised on a major increase in the home users computing power. Windows XP 64-bit edition is going gold soon, 64bit processors are becoming more mainstream, and soon PCI-Express will rule the graphics card scene, upping the bar significantly.

sure you may have 2500 songs but really who needs that many

lol, believe it or not 2500 songs get old, real quick. I have a rather large collection of both digitial and cd music, and I've heard every song in the collections at least 1000 times, so yeah, it does get old.

Originally posted by diehard_democrat
Just think, companies will be selling cheap computers with 16 GB of RAM in less than five years.

Yeah and in another five years after that we will all be thinking 'However did we get along with just 16GB of RAM'!

PCs will probably look so different in 10 years though.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
- Arthur C. Clarke

even if you have 2500 songs i know i would never have all that time to listen to ever one it would take me a long time exsepcialy if you listen to older rock because most of the songs are long exspecally metllica

Guess I would have to fill it with videos. otherwise its gee wizz technology that actualy doesn't make much of a real world difference. Like who actually has 2500 songs?

I somehow managed to fill up 2 250gb hd's in about a month. Not hard to do with a broadband connection.

The sad thing is, Pentium, AMD and all these other hardware companies are just sitting on this technology....Sure they're doing it for consumer affordability, but also to price gouge us in sequential release dates that supposedly showcase "the newest and best".....

I feel like a hamster stuck in a spinning wheel that just won't stop spinning sometimes....And someone's out there just laughing away at me....

I wouldnt say they are sitting on it, they have no choice but to hold back on letting the consumer have it until there is a better product to give to the federal goverment. The consumer 64 bit processors are relatively new, but Sun has made the UltraSPARC processors for years, so I think is safe to say there is a difference between what "we" have and what "they" have.

I think it is long overdue. One of the major problems is that computer software has evolved to a point where the computer can do so many things, now including our media needs. Problem is the storage is insufficient. 40 gig of music, 200 gig of movies, all of these things take space. Wish terabyte hard drives were already here.

There will come a time not long from now when 1 terabyte of storage and a 1 terahertz processor will be common. I'd bet on it. Other technologies are changing, as well, and will need a powerful machine to drive them.

For instance, instead of the big, heavy monitors most of us use today, we will soon be given the option of replacing it with a device to project a holographic image into 3D space. No monitor at all. Just an image in 3D space that you can walk right through.

Once that takes off, I'm sure it won't be long before the holographic technology will be developed further to allow for a holographic image of any size and resolution. In other words, the Internet will then become a life-size virtual reality world, perhaps indistinguishable from the "real world". Just think, after work you could come home and immerse yourself into a simulated environment surrounded by objects of your choosing. You could walk around in the hologram and it would seem real. You could also share your simulated world with anyone on Earth - perhaps a buddy on the other side of the globe whose virtual appearance may be anything you want it to be. Think of the possibilities! Yum Yum!! Vroom Vroom!! Just think how world news could be presented. Instead of the dull 2D news articles we read today, you could go right there and experience it. You could "virtually" go to where the news is happening - up close and personal. And if you could afford a really sophisticated system, you might even be able to taste and smell your virtual world. Just think, instead of just reading about the presidential innaugaration, you could attend it. Instead of reading about the War in Iraq, you could be there in person to witness it. Yes, there's a downside.

At any rate, all this good stuff is going to need one powerful engine and a lot of space to store it. And that is what justifies it. It's not just for storing Word docs and spread sheets...


[edit on 4/6/2005 by netbound]

... 230Gigs per square inch...

... guh... meh... erk... *seize*

I remember paying $600 for my 250MB drive... $150 for a 4MB SIMM... 200 for a 14.4 modem!! (For the younger crowd a modem is this boxy thing with lights and switches plugged into the phone line ) last year I FINALLY went from a dual p3/700 setup to this nice 'n' fancy P4 2.6, and it blows me away Im so far behind. I filled the 160GB (20 for XP, 90 for data, the rest in other partitions) in a month or two. One terabyte in a single drive would be nice, no need for little raid towers hehe.

I don't think computers will be toooo much different in 10 years. As long as the industry has not yet shifted to quantum computing and pure optical components, they should still look about the same as today on the inside. As far as part layout and system design not much has changed except those few years where the boys liked to use card style cpu sockets. But now we're back to good ol' ZIF's just like we were in the early 80s. RAM will still be on sticks. There will still most likely be a normal max of 4 RAM slots on a motherboard, so 4GB per stick is pretty reasonable. Cost may be prohibitive for end users to have 16GB tho. Buses will look a little different most likely but they will still basically do the same thing, just much wider arch.

The real change I see is the operating systems they will be running. I see MacOS (currently OS X.whatever, unix kernel with MacOS GUI) being ported to x86 (or whatever the end result of modern day x86 will be), and Linux taking a strong hold on the "user" market as Windows falls farther and farther behind. With MacOS and Linux variants beind the dominant operating systems (meaning Unix would be used by the majority of end user consumers), computer systems will be exponentially faster, more stable, and more compatible with eachother regardless of brand, ignoring the gains in hardware power, compared to a Microsoft world.

Im still waiting for my FUFME drive tho... where is that darn thing...

You do realize that article stated 230 giga BITS per square inch. Not 230 giga bytes. So in fact the drive would only store 28.75 giga bytes of data per square inch. So for a drive of size 3 inch by 3 inch ( which is about the size of a stndard harddrive approximatly...I think? ) would have 9 square inches of storage space giving 258.75 gigabytes of storage on a hard drive.
Now please correct me if I'm wrong but can't we already buy harddrives up to 250 gigabytes.

Plus the article has missinterpreted some data:

Hitachi has said it can fit 230 gigabits of data per square inch

and then further down

Hitachi's work means we could see one-inch hard drives holding 60GB

as I stated above it would only hold 28.75gb per square inch. If it were 60GB per inch then yes that would be great. But this article leaves me wondering.

I might see if I can find any corresponding articles to back it up.