Does A Person Really Use Over 1TB Of Storage

[master_shake_]

got 32tb's in one racked case and 24 in another

so yes.

 

[CuriousMike]

As a home user, how do you fill 4TB's of data?

It's been mentioned here, but I know I'm using 400GB's currently for photos+video for the last 14 years. The first 8 years took about 80GB, since I've moved to DSLR I'm taking more photos and they're higher resolution.

I suppose one way to fill up TB's of hard disk is backing up all your movies and keeping them on disk.

Video games could take up a bit - as mentioned earlier, 20+GB game installs are more common. Install 10 of those games, and you're at 200GB.

But I've got to believe the > 4TB users are mostly comprised of movie backups. (?)

 

[bunnyfubbles]

A 1:1 copy Bluray rip is ~25GB alone, and that's only going increase when we get 4K content.

and that's just the single layer rips, there are plenty of double layer disc movies that can easily push 40GB

 

[BonzaiDuck]

That's a bit ridiculous. If you wanted some arbitrary metric that has at least a bit of validity in order to limit storage capacities, it'd be to not buy any 2.5" disks with more than a single platter and not to buy any 3.5" disks with more than 3 platters. 4+ platter 3.5" disks typically have higher failure rates, but aren't very common anyway partly because of that. As platter density goes up, so does maximum throughput. Also, as platter density goes up, when short stroking you can hit IOPs targets without reducing as much capacity. Give me single platter 1TB 2.5" 7200RPM SATA disks all day, you put enough of those in a box it'll be mighty speedy.

If your friend is concerned about reliability what are his thoughts on SSDs? NAND flash has limitations that HDDs simply don't, but just like everything in technology it's a trade-off. You get higher performance for a limited lifespan. I don't see how this is a concern, when in almost every environment you might have a 5 year cycle at most (even at home, shorter if you're reasonably tech savvy).

Maybe it's a bit ridiculous. I didn't mean to sow contention, but the thread's main question was "does anyone really use 1TB?" I've been buying 500GB drives -- VR's or WD Blacks -- since '08. 1TB drives: I bought four during '11 and '12. Had one or two of those just sitting in cartons waiting to be used until my latest refurb of the server. With the SSDs now and in the next couple months, I'll be collecting several of the 500's to use as hotswap backups. Well -- maybe three of them.

So despite this, my outlays are measured -- reasonably careful.

CuriousMike asks "how do you fill 4TB's with data?" I don't! Yes -- there are movie archives, audio archives always being augmented, and photo archives. But if you have 4TB's "online" you don't want to just "fill them up." I begin to think about buying bigger and more drives when I see my overall capacity exceeding 60% per disk. Even with the "old" workstations we have, I keep an eye on it. Right now, while all the other workstations are at about ~50%, I have one box upstairs with ~1TB of 2 in Raid0 -- using only 20% of capacity. So I'll swap in a 240 GB SSD, replace one of the 500's with a 320GB, and walk away with two 500's to stick in hot-swap caddies.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Good point.

200GB of user data means a 500 GB drive, minimum, and another 500GB drive for backups. Minimum. So you "need" 1TB of storage.

 

[MongGrel]

I do.

 

[ethebubbeth]

Signs point to yes...

I've gone from 8TB to 16TB to 43TB on my NAS in the last 4 years. I'm sure I'll be expanding again within the next couple years.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I do.

"Fill up 4TB of data" you mean?

In exchanges with some "senior" friends who are "mainstreamers," somebody mentioned Jack Valenti in a more favorable context of Hollywood movers and shakers. And I countered by noting "Jack Valenti will ultimately be remembered for the plague of HDCP and the copyright Nazi movement!" My friends quickly responded by saying "You don't need to record broadcasts anymore; you can just purchase the movie online, it's "yours forever" and play it anytime you want."

But I watch Tee-VEE! I can't watch two channels at once, even with two monitors and two input sources. I "DVR". And I confess -- it's a sort of "short term" collection. I can't play or copy the recordings on any other computer than the one which recorded them -- at least not the encrypted premium channels -- thanks in part to Jack Valenti. So I make periodic purges, keeping both the freebies and the premiums I'm likely to view again before purging. In this practice, my storage requirements may not expand significantly. Without the HDCP restrictions, they would expand more, but I wouldn't be out on the sidewalk downtown trying to hawk pirated copies, either. The last time I "shared" a movie by passing a friend a DVD, it was the PBS "INdependent Lens" production of "Chicago 10." OTA and PBS is pretty much meant to be free as far as I know, even though PBS offers DVDs for a price.

So if I want any 3TB drives, I'm gonna take my darn time -- there's no hurry. And if someone says "I need a 12 TB storage array!" -- who am I to judge or decide?

 

[Torn Mind]

Certain applications do gobble up hard drive space. It is just that consumers are simply unaware of these activities. An audiophile is certain to be ripping his music losslessly with FLAC or something similar or even just ripping ISO files for 100 fidelity to the original disk.

 

[jkauff]

If you're a digital collector, the answer is definitely yes. I have a reasonably modest collection of music and movies that uses 12TB for content and 12TB for backup. Think of people who had walls full of DVDs and CDs, but now have them all on the computer.

 

[RagnarKon]

All of my data combined adds up to roughly 21 TB of space. But I do video editing on the side, which eats up the vast majority of that 21 TB.

If you subtract the video editing-related data, then I use up just under 3 TB of data.

 

[coffeejunkee]

Thus far the biggest consumer storage server I encountered was 145 TB. Not unlikely there's someone out there who has even more storage.

So yeah, I guess some people really do use more than 1 TB.

 

[KingFatty]

But I guess it's another question as to whether you are actually *using* that storage.

Maybe it would be more interesting to see how much data a person has "touched" in the last year. This would probably exclude much of a large stored collection. I guess there's a way to search for "last date since file access <= 1 year" or something?

 

[blastingcap]

You do not want to push the capacities of SSDs (slows performance down) and HDDs (ditto, the fastest-to-access portion on spinning disks gets taken first, so you never want to be anywhere near full on a HDD). As a rule of thumb, if you are 75% full, it's time to get more capacity. OP might not be there yet, but he will be eventually.

 

[mv2devnull]

I guess there's a way to search for "last date since file access <= 1 year" or something?

There is, depending on the filesystem, although updating the "access" (unlike "created" and "modified") timestamp is nice to turn off for performance.


It is easy to fill large volumes, especially with silly and useless data. Concious cleanup is the laborous part.

 

[coffeejunkee]

But I guess it's another question as to whether you are actually *using* that storage.

Maybe it would be more interesting to see how much data a person has "touched" in the last year. This would probably exclude much of a large stored collection. I guess there's a way to search for "last date since file access <= 1 year" or something?

Storage is used to store things. So if there is stuff stored in your storage, you are using it.

I understand what you mean though. Another question is 'do you need it?' but that could be asked of a lot of things.

 

[KingFatty]

It's scary to think that if I have never accessed half of my storage contents in the last 10 years, could I just delete it and not worry about it?

I guess it's like digital hoarding. Do you keep stuff or actively delete? I have a lot of stuff I could go through and delete, but too daunting to try to dig through everything so better to just buy another drive heh.

 

[tential]

If digital hoarders was a show I would be on it. Easier to buy another HDD than to find what is expendable in my pr0n stash.

I know your feels. 10 TB of "data" and I'm still wondering how I will use my last free TB. I need 2 more 4TB drives but 6TB is right around the corner. I wish I had a date/price of when 6TB would hit $150.

It's so bad to the point where I have episodes of shows like Desperate Housewives, Pretty Little Liars, etc. Thank god Digital Hoarding isn't something that makes your home look terrible.

"Fill up 4TB of data" you mean?

In exchanges with some "senior" friends who are "mainstreamers," somebody mentioned Jack Valenti in a more favorable context of Hollywood movers and shakers. And I countered by noting "Jack Valenti will ultimately be remembered for the plague of HDCP and the copyright Nazi movement!" My friends quickly responded by saying "You don't need to record broadcasts anymore; you can just purchase the movie online, it's "yours forever" and play it anytime you want."

But I watch Tee-VEE! I can't watch two channels at once, even with two monitors and two input sources. I "DVR". And I confess -- it's a sort of "short term" collection. I can't play or copy the recordings on any other computer than the one which recorded them -- at least not the encrypted premium channels -- thanks in part to Jack Valenti. So I make periodic purges, keeping both the freebies and the premiums I'm likely to view again before purging. In this practice, my storage requirements may not expand significantly. Without the HDCP restrictions, they would expand more, but I wouldn't be out on the sidewalk downtown trying to hawk pirated copies, either. The last time I "shared" a movie by passing a friend a DVD, it was the PBS "INdependent Lens" production of "Chicago 10." OTA and PBS is pretty much meant to be free as far as I know, even though PBS offers DVDs for a price.

So if I want any 3TB drives, I'm gonna take my darn time -- there's no hurry. And if someone says "I need a 12 TB storage array!" -- who am I to judge or decide?

Purge?

You mean delete?

That's an option on computers? I NEVER delete things. Unless it's to add a larger/higher quality version of it lol.

I will DVR things though if I have to. Currently DVRing The Profit. Honestly, it makes zero sense that you can DVR a television series, reencode it, and save it on your PC, but you can't download that same series instead and save yourself the trouble of having to wait to reencode each episode.

Edit: I came on here to ask when will commercial drives hit 6TB and hit $150 pricepoint approximately? I really really need a new HDD and don't want to get a 4TB when 6TB is right there.

 

[h9826790]

My wife can use up more than 1T of storage easily just by taking photos and video for our daughter.

 

[jimhsu]

One of the emerging areas is scientific data. I'm a relative lightweight (only a few dozen GB of microscopy images here and there), but stuff like raw sequencing data can run into an entire TB PER sample. It's no surprise that any moderately productive sequencing lab can rotate through entire arrays of TB drives, per day.

Oh, you asked for consumer uses? Big ones are photography, video, etc. Photoshop PSD files can take up to a gig or more with no sweat. With movies, it's even more ridiculous.

 

[GAO]

You do not want to push the capacities of SSDs (slows performance down) and HDDs (ditto, the fastest-to-access portion on spinning disks gets taken first, so you never want to be anywhere near full on a HDD). As a rule of thumb, if you are 75% full, it's time to get more capacity. OP might not be there yet, but he will be eventually.

Depends on what you are using it for. If backups or archive, who cares if it is at the slow end of the disk.

I have 6 TB + other odds and ends old externals. 1TB internal of RAW photography images, one internal for backups of these, and one external for backups. 1 for games, etc, 2 TB+ for system image backups, app backups, videos and backups, etc.

 

[h9826790]

"640K ought to be enough for anybody" by Bill Gates.

 

[Kippa]

I think newer games in the not so distant future are going to have ultra high textures made for 4K monitor resolutions. I bet those sort of games could easily eat 50gb to 100gb+ and more. Rage ate 20gb and Max Payne ate 30gb and they're only going to get larger. Within circa 5 years I wouldn't be surprised if there were a PC game that ate up 200gb of storage space.

 

[h9826790]

I think newer games in the not so distant future are going to have ultra high textures made for 4K monitor resolutions. I bet those sort of games could easily eat 50gb to 100gb+ and more. Rage ate 20gb and Max Payne ate 30gb and they're only going to get larger. Within circa 5 years I wouldn't be surprised if there were a PC game that ate up 200gb of storage space.

My X-plane folder already 100G in size with just very little scenery installed.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I run 5tb myself.