Disk space and how things have changed

[MoodyBlues]

That old adage, "work expands to fill the time available for it," often comes to mind as I use modern storage devices. Like a 1TB hard drive. "Files expand to fill the space available for them."

It seems almost like a foggy dream now, but not that long ago it was cutting edge to have a hard drive in the 200MB range.

And it really wasn't that long ago that floppy diskettes--which held a whopping 1.44MB--were the norm for saving/sharing files.

Now? Each photograph I take with my DSLR cameras is too big to fit on one of those old floppies! I'm backing up files onto disks measured in terabytes. TERABYTES!! Amazing. And I don't know about anyone else, but for me there's just no end in sight. I keep using more and more space, and keep expecting storage options to keep pace.

 

[Dngrsone]

I hear ya, Moody. It doesn't seem all that long ago that I was repairing hard drives (replacing heads and media) and those drives had a total capacity of 20Mb.

I used to teach guys how to use this one mainframe system, and by the end of its life I could pull out my PDA and announce that I held more computing power (and definitely more storage) in my hand than was used in the whole system we were discussing.

 

[MoodyBlues]

I hear ya, Moody. It doesn't seem all that long ago that I was repairing hard drives (replacing heads and media) and those drives had a total capacity of 20Mb.

I used to teach guys how to use this one mainframe system, and by the end of its life I could pull out my PDA and announce that I held more computing power (and definitely more storage) in my hand than was used in the whole system we were discussing.

Yep!!

The IBM System/3 mainframes that I replaced with a UNIX [actually SCO Xenix] system back in the '80s had disk packs that held 2.5MB [I just had to look that up because I didn't remember their capacity]. Can you imagine?! My photographs are more than double that size. And the '80s don't really seem that long ago to me! I remember that job so well [I LOVED it], and it doesn't seem like it was a million years ago, but look at how technology has advanced. It's mind-boggling.

 

[mikedt]

In 1989 my first hard-drive was 5 megabytes, a 5.25 in full-height Rodime, that I acquired second-hand along with its Xebec full-length ISA slot MFM controller. New HDDs were still quite expensive around that time, and it was better than just using floppies. These days even just one photo I take or a single MP3 wouldn't fit on that drive.

My first computer the Acorn Atom in 1980, had 2 kilobytes of RAM(expandable to 12), 8 kilobytes of ROM(expandable to 12), and had to store programs and data on cassette. Plus the computer was much cheaper if bought a kit rather than ready assembled, and then soldering all the chips, resistors, capacitors, etc, in yourself. That was

 

[thicks56]

Very weird that you've just posted this,

I mentioned to my dad this weekend that I had found and old PS1 memory card which contained 1 MB,

Couldnt believe that the Micro SD card that I've just put in my phone is smaller than a 5p piece and has 65,536 MB!!!

 

[argedion]

Files have gotten biggers as the storage for them has. I can remember when I got the very first 1gig hard drive I had. I had to partition it so that I could use it DOS was only allowing me to get like close to 300mb off of it. So I had to partition it a couple of times to get all the space. Back then we were fortunate if we had a computer that could support more than just 8mgs of RAM. I remember a couple of friends coming over to watch me partition my 1gig hard drive and going dude you'll never run out of space. If I remember right I paid like close to 200 bucks for that drive it was a quantum drive which I think Maxtor ended up buying out then Seagate bought out Maxtor oh those were the days

I still remember having to buy a box of 1.44's for doing my backups man it use to take forever to store all my stuff on those things. Now you get a portable hard drive with a terabyte on it and your pretty much good to go.

Not to mention the overlay I had to use that would tell the bios oh I'm just a small little 250mg hard drive don't mind me.

 

[MoodyBlues]

Files have gotten biggers as the storage for them has.

Yes, definitely. And there's no end in sight.

I can remember when I got the very first 1gig hard drive I had. I had to partition it so that I could use it DOS was only allowing me to get like close to 300mb off of it. So I had to partition it a couple of times to get all the space. Back then we were fortunate if we had a computer that could support more than just 8mgs of RAM. I remember a couple of friends coming over to watch me partition my 1gig hard drive and going dude you'll never run out of space.

Ah, yes, the "you're set for life!" thinking. I remember that well...

If I remember right I paid like close to 200 bucks for that drive it was a quantum drive which I think Maxtor ended up buying out then Seagate bought out Maxtor oh those were the days

The UNIX server that I configured at work circa 1988 had a 230MB hard drive. The computer came with 1MB of RAM--that's not a typo: ONE MEGABYTE--and I expanded that to 3MB. RAM was wildly expensive back then. Total cost for that server was ~$25,000--and my current smartphone, a Motorola Atrix 2, has more storage, more memory, and more power than that sucker did. And it fits in my pocket! :laugh:

I still remember having to buy a box of 1.44's for doing my backups man it use to take forever to store all my stuff on those things. Now you get a portable hard drive with a terabyte on it and your pretty much good to go.

Exactly. I recently bought two Transcend external drives, each with 1TB of space. It blows me away that these cost less than $100 each. Incredible.

Oh, speaking of storage, I used to do my backups [of the UNIX system] on a Bernoulli drive; the disks were 8" and held...I have no idea! I'll look it up some other time.

 

[Hadron]

Now? Each photograph I take with my DSLR cameras is too big to fit on one of those old floppies! I'm backing up files onto disks measured in terabytes. TERABYTES!!

Tell me about it! I shoot RAW, and reckon that my first PC's hard drive (a whopping 400 MB) would have been good for about 15 shots with my current DSLR (fewer if I used uncompressed raw). The 1TB hard drive on the home PC is not looking generous at all any more, and even being more ruthless in deleting stuff I'm going to be having to look at expansion (and a larger backup solution) this year...

 

[mikedt]

Here's one I'll share from my first computer, the Acorn Atom. The optional extra floppy drive, and I could never afford one of these at the time.

"The new disk pack made by Acorn for use with the Atom offers amazing value for money. If put together from the parts at Acorn standard prices, it will cost well over

 

[MoodyBlues]

Here's one I'll share from my first computer, the Acorn Atom. The optional extra floppy drive, and I could never afford one of these at the time.

"The new disk pack made by Acorn for use with the Atom offers amazing value for money. If put together from the parts at Acorn standard prices, it will cost well over

 

[Dngrsone]

Oh, did I love my C-64... I had a premium setup, with twin drives and everything.

When I went to buy a PC clone, I ended up spending far too much for way too little (monochrome display even), and I kept going back to the C-64 (or using work computers) until I could get a throw-away 386 machine to upgrade.

Once I got my fill of 32-bit color goodness, I never looked back.

 

[big_z]

I was put in charge of researching upgrades for our family PC; I remember drooling over those Quantum Fireballs. Fast (at the time) rotation speed, big (again, at the time) storage. Getting the latest free PC-oriented newspaper every week, pouring over the hard drive prices, pawing through my uncle's issues of Computer Shopper, good times. We used to get 2 computer magazines a month also, one was PC Magazine, which we stopped because it was crappier than the other one (can't remember its name). We're talking 120, 340, 800 MB hard drives. I don't remember if we bought the Fireball or not. Anyway, today I have a 64GB microSD card in my phone, which means I can literally swallow more data today than I ever had access to in the first 23-ish years of my life combined.

More recently, at my second real-life job one of the first things I worked on was a brand new RAID; 16 drives at 250GB apiece for something like 3TB of storage. Our big plan for it was storing map data on it. Unfortunately it was hooked up to a Windows machine (allegedly only Windows had the right drivers for it); it also wouldn't write properly. It quickly became known as the BAP (Big Ass Paperweight). It took up 3 or 4 RUs of space, and sounded like a jet engine. Today I have my NAS quietly running in my entertainment center with about as much storage, using only 3 of the possible 4 drives in it.