Sometimes we may never know how much is enough, and that is never more true in computing. I believe when Microsoft designed MS DOS in the early 80s, they allocated that it can address only 640K of memory. At that time, when even mainframe computers have 64K of memory, 640K looked huge. Of course, now it is routine to have 512 megabyte of memory, which essentially is almost a thousand times bigger that what looked like the upper limit just 20 years ago. Some of our units now have 2 or 4 gigabytes in memory, and sometimes we still wish we even have more! As technologists point out aptly, the gadgets I bring alongside with me everyday have now more memory, more storage, and more computing than the spaceship that landed people on the moon!
The same holds true for hard disk space. 2 years ago, I got a notebook, and a new email account for Google Mail. The notebook had 80 gigabytes, and I thought I would never consume it. Google Mail first offered 1 gigabyte of mail space ( this was a big improvement over 2 or 5 megabytes offered by other email providers), and its tagline was that so that you will never have to delete your emails again. Now, they are even providing more ( about 2.8 gigabytes as of this writing), and yet, I have been deleting emails for the last 6 months, and my notebook has been full that I now have another external hard disk.
Storage fills up quickly if you do video and also music and pictures. For instance, you see all those nice digital cameras that is touted as 7 or 10 megapixels. That is well and good, except when you note that it can easily eat up 8 megabytes per picture you take. So, on a day when there are lots of picture takes ( like during the ASEAN and Sinulog), a days take can easily be 500 pictures. After all, the advantage of digital pictures ( compared to film ) is that you don’t spend money to buy film or developing anymore, and therefore you would rather take 100 bad pictures, than miss one Kodak moment! 500 pictures of course can easily be more than 4 gigabytes. It is not only that it takes lot of space, but transferring the photos from external to internal hard disk ( which used to be a snap using firewire or USB) now seems to take really long.
However, technology developments comes into rescue. First is that there are new developments to add another port the eSATA that will be introduced to PCs. ESATA ( External Serial ATA) is the external version of the technology that connects hard disks. The main thing is it allows you to connect the hard disk and gives it the same speed in comparison to Firewire or USB.
For instance, USB theoretically have a transfer data of a maximum of 480 megabits per second, while Firewire ( or called IEEE 1394 in other PCs) transfer either 400 or 800 megabits per second. ESATA can do 3 gigabits per second.
ESATA drives are believed to become more popular starting in 2007, and could well be a standard ( with most PCs having the port) in a few years. Of course, this also parallels the development of new DVD formats. While current DVD now ( with DVD-9) can have a maximum of 8.5 gigabytes per disc, there are now 2 formats that are competing to be the next standard. HD DVD can hold upto 30 gigabytes per disc, while Blu-Ray can hold upto 50 gigabytes per disc.
Seagate also recently announced something that is equally exciting. This is a 2.5 nich drive ( brand name Savvio) which can spin data at 15,000 rounds per minute. This therefore means that there are now smaller devices that can replace 3.5 inch drives that is as fast.
Smaller 2.5 inch drives used to spin only 10,000 rpm and therefore were slower than their 3.5 inch cousins. These 2.5 inch drives are normally found in blade or rackmount servers that saves space, or in computer notebooks. With these introduction of smaller faster drives, as well as it being able to generate less heat and use upto 30 percent less power, it is expected that blade and rackmount servers will continue to gain in popularity, and will also accelerate the trend of notebook computers replacing desktops.
Even as the computing power becomes faster ( new generation processors are now almost all dual core- meaning having two processors), big companies like Microsoft or Google continue to build data centers containing tens of thousands of servers as it tries to push the limits to even more power. Thus, blade servers ( which allows a company to easily cram over hundreds of processors in a few square meters of space) are becoming popular, and the ability to garner more computing power and storage with less space, less heat, and less power requirements continues to be the holy grail now of computing.
300 gigabyte or 500 gigabyte hard disk on your computer? It will sound again awesome now, but maybe 3 years from now, it will not be enough again.
Wilson Ng keeps a log of his articles on business and computing in www.ngkhai.net/bizdrivenlife