[Big Mac]

There is massive flooding in Thailand, and I wasn't aware until now that about a quarter of the world's hard drive supply is produced there:

Massive Thailand Floods Likely To Cause Widespread Hard Drive Shortage

The human cost is much more tragic, obviously. . . But I remember the DRAM plant fire that occurred in the early 1990s that caused RAM prices to soar and stay high for many years.

[Waragainstsleep]

Hard drives went up after the Japan quake too. Damnit, I'm waiting for the 3TBs to go mainstream, I still need to buy 15 2TB drives and have no money.

[Big Mac]

Why 15?

[olePigeon]

Because he has 30 TBs of porn.

[Waragainstsleep]

I bought a rack mount SCSI RAID unit with no disks. It holds 15. I download a lot of movies and TV shows and I prefer not to delete them.

[olePigeon]

I assume you mean either from iTunes or ripped from DVDs that you own.

[Waragainstsleep]

Of course. Either way, takes up a lot of space.

[reader50]

I'm waiting on the 4 TB drives, so I can reduce my drive count. Fewer drives = lower chance of failure.

[Waragainstsleep]

If I could afford 3TB drives, I'd go for those instead. Likewise 4TB. I have a sneaking suspicion my RAID is only setup to deal with 2TB disks but I don't know for sure.

Its a great way to get a lot of storage at a big discount. a 30TB rack mount RAID 5 would set me back over £10K new. I reckon I could do it my way for well under £2K. A new one would likely have fibre channel or at the very least faster SCSI, but mine only needs to be fast enough to stream video, so its not an issue.

The downside is the power consumption. Now if I could run it and one of my old Xserves from a solar panel, I'd be a very happy man.

[Waragainstsleep]

Something like this:

PROMISE VTRAK 15100 SATA STORAGE ARRAY HOLDS 15 SATA HD | eBay

Mine is the slightly newer version but otherwise very similar.

[Shaddim]

Just ordered some more 3TB drives, just in case. Might as well be prepared.

[imitchellg5]

Why do people need to have multiple Tb of extra drives? Isn't unused space wasted space?

[Tiresias]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

Hard drives went up after the Japan quake too. Damnit, I'm waiting for the 3TBs to go mainstream, I still need to buy 15 2TB drives and have no money.

Math is not my strong point but doesn't the requirement for 30,000 GB mean you need to store the digital content of approximately 7,000 DVDs? At an average cost of, say, 16 dollars, doesn't that mean you have spent about 112,000 dollars on movies?

[Tiresias]

Originally Posted by Shaddim 

Just ordered some more 3TB drives, just in case. Might as well be prepared.

I agree.

I used to keep movies, but honestly, how often do you actually watch them.

With the exception of a few select masterpieces of cinema, I delete everything after watching it. If I really want to see it again, I'll just download it again.

[Shaddim]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

Why do people need to have multiple Tb of extra drives? Isn't unused space wasted space?

Because they'e cheap and everyone who lives here is a data pack rat.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by reader50 

I'm waiting on the 4 TB drives, so I can reduce my drive count. Fewer drives = lower chance of failure.

That's one way of thinking about it, but if one of those drives fails the amount of data loss is greater too if there is no redundancy.

[angelmb]

With the exception of a few select masterpieces of cinema, I delete everything after watching it. If I really want to see it again, I'll just download it again.

They don't make movies the way they used to, do they?

[mattyb]

Originally Posted by Tiresias 

Math is not my strong point but doesn't the requirement for 30,000 GB mean you need to store the digital content of approximately 7,000 DVDs? At an average cost of, say, 16 dollars, doesn't that mean you have spent about 112,000 dollars on movies?

Oh dear.

[Waragainstsleep]

For a start, you buy more space than you need, so it lasts you a while. If I had 30TB of movies, and bought 30TB of storage, then I'd be screwed if I wanted to get any new movies. I have a few TB of video files strewn across dozens of disks and old Macs. I'd like to put it all in one place and have room to add to it. Plenty of room.
Lots of my stuff is in HD. though mostly 720p rather than 1080.
I just like the idea of having an extensive video library on demand. Video equivalent of the original iPod. A wall of movies/TV shows in one box. My broadband sucks at the time of day you'd actually want to watch something on TV, so I can't use streaming services unless I want to watch stuff at 3am. Sadly I have to work normal hours otherwise I would watch stuff at 3am. I can get quite picky about what I want to watch, when I want to watch it. If I decide I want to go watch 24 from start to finish again, I don't want to have to wait a couple of days to get enough that I won't run out before I can get to the end.

[CollinG3G4]

Originally Posted by Tiresias 

Math is not my strong point but doesn't the requirement for 30,000 GB mean you need to store the digital content of approximately 7,000 DVDs? At an average cost of, say, 16 dollars, doesn't that mean you have spent about 112,000 dollars on movies?

I have that many movies and have spent zero dollars. It's magic, not math.

[Shaddim]

Originally Posted by Tiresias 

Math is not my strong point but doesn't the requirement for 30,000 GB mean you need to store the digital content of approximately 7,000 DVDs? At an average cost of, say, 16 dollars, doesn't that mean you have spent about 112,000 dollars on movies?

1080P movies, almost 50GB a pop.

[nonhuman]

Well if you are going to buy some hard drives, here's a 2 TB USB 2.0 drive for $70: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13845_3-20...69.99-shipped/

[Shaddim]

External, I'd have to take the drive out for it to go in my array. Plus, I use Western Digital drives exclusively, because of the array.

[Demonhood]

I have several terabytes of photos alone. I can't imagine what a headache disk space is for video editors.

[Waragainstsleep]

@Shaddim, what array do you have?

[mattyb]

Originally Posted by Demonhood 

I have several terabytes of photos alone. I can't imagine what a headache disk space is for video editors.

It'll only get worse with the new 18Mpixel sensor in the 1DX and the reported 36Mpixel sensor that could be in the D800.

Several TB of photos is impressive though. Or a sign of insanity.

[Shaddim]

Last time I bought a pair of these, they've been working well. They're a little flimsy, but what do you expect for <$300?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816132016

Don't use the card it comes with, throw that in the trash and get a Highpoint RocketRAID card.

[imitchellg5]

I have a 250 Gb USB 2.0 hard drive! Can I be cool too?

[reader50]

Originally Posted by Shaddim 

Last time I bought a pair of these, they've been working well. They're a little flimsy, but what do you expect for <$300?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816132016

Don't use the card it comes with, throw that in the trash and get a Highpoint RocketRAID card.

I have the 5-bay version. It's been perfectly reliable for the past couple years.

Agreed the included eSATA card is junk, but I wouldn't get a Highpoint either (bad customer support). I've been happy with a Firmtek card.

[angelmb]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

I have a 250 Gb USB 2.0 hard drive! Can I be cool too?

Yeah, this is my 250 GB USB 2.0 external hard drive. It is big — physically at least.

All my DiskDoubler files go there.

[FireWire]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

I bought a rack mount SCSI RAID unit with no disks. It holds 15. I download a lot of movies and TV shows and I prefer not to delete them.

They're still making SCSI drives? I haven't seen those since my 1997 PowerMac 7300!

Beside, is there any reason why HD size went up non stop but now they seem to have reached a plateau?

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by FireWire 

They're still making SCSI drives? I haven't seen those since my 1997 PowerMac 7300!

Beside, is there any reason why HD size went up non stop but now they seem to have reached a plateau?

Noooooo. The array connects to a host Mac via UW SCSI 320. The drives are SATA. Best thing about the old Promise units is they include proper functional caddies. Get an IBM or HP and they are often loaded with blanks you can't fill.

[reader50]

Originally Posted by FireWire 

Beside, is there any reason why HD size went up non stop but now they seem to have reached a plateau?

A few years back, sizes stalled out because they'd reached the accuracy limits of a one-stage head positioning motor. This capped the track count. That stall happened when they reached 500 GB drives. Everyone needed to develop 2-stage head positioning arms, and it took a few years to build and test them. Seagate tried to push a single-stage solution a little further (the 7200.11 series) and got burned badly by failures.

Midway through the stall, they transitioned to perpendicular recording, giving a ~2.5x density increase at the same track count. But the track counts couldn't increase yet, until they finished stress-testing the new positioning motor designs.

The HD manufacturers have since gotten their 2-stage solutions going (everything 2TB and higher), but they've been timid ever since. Slowly bumping density, releasing at 5400 RPM first, with 7200 RPM trailing by up to a year. When 7200 does get here, it's introduced as a performance part with a premium price.

In hindsight, the storage stall happened at just the wrong time. Digital video on computer finally caught on (media libraries etc), AND we transitioned to High Def video. So storage demands exploded just as HD sizes stalled. The demands have kept going up today, with drive sizes not quite catching up.

Result: RAID has gone mainstream. Extra drive interface cards used to compete on port counts, and top-end cards also had RAID built in. Today, only the cheapest of the cheap cards lack RAID.

We're not in a plateau, but increasing demand has "eaten up" the available size increases. And the video people are talking about 4K video. So unless the drive manufacturers amp things up, It's going to keep feeling like a plateau for the foreseeable future.

[Big Mac]

I see that Seagate in September came out with the first 4 TB drive. So reader, do you think regular hard drive tech is reaching is physical limits? I've been somewhat disappointed that SSD hasn't started ramping up in capacity yet.

[Waragainstsleep]

It would be nice if we could build RAID arrays like mine without the noise and the power consumption. I wonder how much of a market there would be for domestic usage like mine under those circumstances.

SSD would solve all of that but imagine the price of 30TB of SSD storage.

[reader50]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

I see that Seagate in September came out with the first 4 TB drive. So reader, do you think regular hard drive tech is reaching is physical limits? I've been somewhat disappointed that SSD hasn't started ramping up in capacity yet.

They keep talking about eventually hitting physical limits of the platters. I've read a few articles on studies done - densities can continue to go up for at least awhile. We should be able to reach at least 18 TB drives, assuming no further development in materials science.

[Big Mac]

Cool, thank you for the info reader.

[olePigeon]

I want this one:

[mattyb]

Probably 1M or something like that.

[chris v]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

Why do people need to have multiple Tb of extra drives? Isn't unused space wasted space?

With Time Machine, you can save iterative backups until you run out of space, at which point the oldest ones have to go. I have mirrors of my data, but it's not a true backup system. I found a corrupted tif file the other day, and lo and behold, the backup of that file on the mirror was corrupted as well. I can't roll it back to before it got corrupted, and it was a design I worked on for at least 30 hours.

I really want a 5-bay Drobo with gigabit ethernet & 10 tb of storage, so I can use it as a NAS Time Machine device for my tower & the three Macbooks in the house.

[Waragainstsleep]

I had yet another Drobo fail on me last month. Pretty much all data lost. I spent a whole day rebuilding email accounts which I had to salvage from the clients since the server was strings its data on the Drobo.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by chris v 

With Time Machine, you can save iterative backups until you run out of space, at which point the oldest ones have to go. I have mirrors of my data, but it's not a true backup system. I found a corrupted tif file the other day, and lo and behold, the backup of that file on the mirror was corrupted as well. I can't roll it back to before it got corrupted, and it was a design I worked on for at least 30 hours.

That's upsetting. I guess that's the type of thing that a ZFS type filesystem would protect against.

[freudling]

I mantra I've taken: move forward, not backward. I got my computer stolen and hard drives, lost a lot of data. I'm back with a fresh new computer, and feel "lighter" and better.

[Tiresias]

Originally Posted by CollinG3G4 

I have that many movies and have spent zero dollars. It's magic, not math.

I think we understand each other.

However, my lawyer and I would like to let the record show that I have never used, nor condoned the use of, uTorrent or affiliated websites.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by CollinG3G4 

I have that many movies and have spent zero dollars. It's magic, not math.

I don't understand people's objections to buying their movies. Most DVDs are $10 or less now. Even Blu-Ray isn't that expensive anymore.

[Tiresias]

You don't understand why people would choose free over ten dollars?

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by Tiresias 

You don't understand why people would choose free over ten dollars?

It's stealing.

[Waragainstsleep]

They aren't $10 in the UK.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Does no one record movies from TV anymore? Or rip them from friends'/families' collections, libraries, garage sales, thrift stores, previously hoarded VHS, or home-made content? Hoarding video files doesn't imply p2p.

[mattyb]

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

It's stealing.

Oh dear.