How long before we see 1000 terabyte drives

[FalseChristian]

1000 terabytes is a quadrillion bytes. I'd say we'll be seeing them within 10 years. What an insane anount of storage, eh?

 

[Yuriman]

Looking at the history of HDD density, it has been doubling every 12-18 months. Currently you can get a 4TB drive so a conservative estimate puts 1000TB drives at 12 years. Unless there's a breakthrough in materials I suspect it'll be much longer though - call it closer to 20.

 

[Pariah]

No chance whatsoever we'll see a petabyte drive in 10 years. None. The first terabyte drive was released in 2007. That was 5 years ago. We're now at 4 terabytes. So in twice the time it took to go from 1 to 4, we're going to go from 4 to 1000? 10 Years ago the 137GB addressing space barrier was broken. That's roughly 30x increase. If that rate is carried another 10 years, that would be about 120TB in 2022. I doubt we'll even reach that in 10 years. Companies might want storage capacity that high, but I can't see what home users would do with that much capacity. We have 4TB drives today, but most of the people I know would have a hard time filling a 500GB drive.

 

[Zxian]

Storage volume is becoming less and less the issue. I/O and network bandwidth is becoming the bottleneck for many applications.

Higher device densities also lead to higher unrecoverable read errors. We're reaching the limit of what spinning disks can do for reliable storage unless some other algorithm of actually writing the 0's and 1's to the disk are found.

 

[Kusnierek]

Well now, don't forget when single-digit gigabyte drives were first coming out, it was the same thing. 1GB was a lot, then suddenly 2GB. My family's Gateway had a 10GB hard drive. Then a couple years later we got a 40GB. Then a 120GB. Then I built a PC with 400GB. You see where this is going. Yes it is slowing down for now, until we get another major breakthrough.

 

[Blain]

How long before we see 1000 terabyte drives

Add 24 and you've got yourself a petabyte drive.

 

[Ben90]

Lol to be fair, HDD companies are going to use 1000 tera = peta.

 

[Phynaz]

I'll say there's a good chance at never.

IBM's research says the magnetic storage limit is 12 atoms per bit - which would get you to around 300TB.

http://www.electroiq.com/articles/sst/2012/01/ibm-discovers-magnetic-storage-limit-at-12-atoms.html

 

[Zardnok]

1000 terabytes is a quadrillion bytes. I'd say we'll be seeing them within 10 years. What an insane anount of storage, eh?

Back during college in the 80s, my room-mate got a brand new massive 80 meg hdd for his computer and we sat and marveled at the storage he had. A not-so-tech friend came down to drink with us and started spouting off about how that 80 meg drive was nothing, he had a "Gig" hard drive in his computer. We humored him and mocked him at the same time as he regaled us with details of his incredible computer with processing power rivaling a Cray Supercomputer. The quest for the "Gig" and the ultimate computer became our running joke. We would laugh and joke about how, "We gotta get a Gig so our computers will be awesome." "Gotta get a Gig." "Gotta get a Gig." It was our mantra. The quest lasted six years. Six years after upgrading to a monstrous 80 meg hdd, my buddy finally got his "Gig". He called me up and we laughed and joked about just how fast technology advances and how yesterdays "big thing" is tomorrows "e-waste".

So, how long will it take to get 1000 terabyte drives? You got me, but I bet it is sooner than anyone would expect!

 

[AnitaPeterson]

I remember, back in late 2000, when the first 80 Gb HDDs trickled on the market (just before Christmas, I think)... One of my colleagues was like "Whoa! that's enormous, what DO you get to put on it?" And look at us now. In fact, I just discovered an unused 80 GB IDE drive in a drawer last night, and I was thinking how to put it to the best use in an old system...

As far as 1000 TB drives go, I'm not sure that 10 years is a realistic estimate, when it comes to HDDs. More like 20 years. If another technology comes around, though... who knows? all bets are off.

 

[Blain]

I'll say there's a good chance at never.

IBM's research says the magnetic storage limit is 12 atoms per bit - which would get you to around 300TB.

4 platter drives would take care of that.
Besides, there are more options than spinning platters for data storage.

 

[wirednuts]

ssd's will do it. i agree it might be 20 years though.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

ssd's will do it. i agree it might be 20 years though.

Nope.

The smaller the process (and the higher the data density) the lower the number of lifetime writes.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/07/the-future-of-ssds/

 

[jhansman]

When we have rocket boots and virtual reality setups at home? Besides, isn't the PC as we know it doomed? Seems like I read that somewhere...

 

[AnitaPeterson]

This just came out in WIRED: http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/07/hp-memristors/

 

[Charles Kozierok]

As some others have pointed out, the pace of progress in HDD capacity has really slowed in recent years. My guess is that this is at least as much for marketing as technical reasons. There just isn't a lot of market for truly enormous storage devices outside the server world.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I would say 1PB drives is far far out in the future. Could be borderlining to never.

HDs will "soon" die to SSDs. And SSDs wont end that big either, far from. Also I dont think 1PB is doable on a 3½" HD either for that matter.

 

[corkyg]

I will go on record and say, not in my lifetime.

 

[Phynaz]

4 platter drives would take care of that.
Besides, there are more options than spinning platters for data storage.

Current 3TB drives are four platter already.

Also, it's pretty much implied that he was talking about magnetic storage.

 

[Phynaz]

This just came out in WIRED: http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/07/hp-memristors/

I think HP has been issuing that same press release once a year for the last decade

 

[Blain]

Current 3TB drives are four platter already.

Also, it's pretty much implied that he was talking about magnetic storage.

But current platters aren't packed to 300TB yet.

In this day of larger and larger SSD, "drives" doesn't imply magnetic spinning platters at all.
If the OP edits, that might clarify exactly what his mindset was when the question was asked.

 

[ShadowVVL]

HDs will "soon" die to SSDs.

Yup and ssd will die to laser hdd's, assuming we ever get them.So technically in the end hdds still win.

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/02/lasers-hard-drive/

 

[wirednuts]

Nope.

The smaller the process (and the higher the data density) the lower the number of lifetime writes.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/07/the-future-of-ssds/

you dont think technologies like memristors might change things?

 

[Sephire]

No. Unless we got tech from E.T.

 

[Phynaz]

But current platters aren't packed to 300TB yet.

In this day of larger and larger SSD, "drives" doesn't imply magnetic spinning platters at all.
If the OP edits, that might clarify exactly what his mindset was when the question was asked.

Who said anything about 300TB per platter? Did you read the article I linked?