Terabyte

  • Thread starter djblackmon
  • 40 comments
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Do you think you will need a terabyte before 2007?


  • Total voters
    48
Not so in the case of storage/network products. Their manufacturers believe in the use of base 10 numbering, not base 2. To them 1 terabyte is actually 1000 gigabytes, not 1024 gigabytes (which is the main reason why a 300GB hard drive is only shown as a ~280GB drive in reality).
And correctly so. A lot of people, incorrectly believe that the terms kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, terabyte etc... refer to each 10th power of 2 (2^10, 2^20, 2^30 and 2^40 respectively), whereas the correct term for these amounts are kibibyte, mebibyte, gibibyte and tebibyte respectively.

Hard disk manufacturers are correct in their usage for the more popular terms refering to each 3rd power of 10 (10^3, 10^6, 10^9 and 10^12).

This said however, it is confusing when the SI prefixes (Système International d’Unités) have become such popular terms for the binary prefixes, far surpassing the correct terms. You will notice how no hard disk manufacturer has made attempts to clarify this misconception, as doing so would make their products seem inferior.

In short, hard disk and network device makers are technically correct, and the rest of us are wrong. 👍

On a side note, I can already think of one piece of audio software which weighs in at an almighty 550gigs, showing that for some, a terabyte may already be a necessity. :scared:
 
I have 1/4th TB on my machine right now and I'm enjoying the space.I have a tendancy to keep EVERYTHING though. I install software and never uninstall. I download game demos, videos, music, softare... and almost all of it gets stored. I'd say right now I NEED about 1/4th TB of storage. So do I think I'll ever need 4 times that? You bet... probably sooner than I think. I'm guessing that the next HDD I buy will be 0.5 TB.
 
I'll probably never need a terabyte. I'm running a 200GB'er (well, 186GB I should say - stupid HDD vendors) now with 82GB of free space. I also have an external 80GB I use to keep cd/dvd images on, which is nearly full.

I know I'll need another HDD soon, but I doubt I'll ever need the storage capacity in the TB region. Hell, this is the most space I've ever had in the 8 or so years I've been computing and I'm struggling to fill it. :P

i don't know why windows can't cange there units

1024GB= 1TB for windows
1000GB=1TB for all other O/Ss
Windows does treat 1TB as 1024GB, and 1GB as 1024MB, and 1MB as 1024KB. Download something this is 1000Kb in size, and you'll notice Windows doesn't label it as 1MB, but rather 1000Kb.

The confusion stems from the the fact SI units are done by powers of 10. But computers compute in powers of 2. ie: 1000 (SI) = 10^3, 1024 = 2^10

That's why everyone should be using the kibibyte damn it!
 
Maybe I should have made the poll more specific, like "Do you think you will need a terabyte within the rest of 2006-2007?" Ill see if I can reset the poll
 
hmm 1TB external with couple hundred MB/sec transfer, or dual 500GB Seagate SATA Internal drives with couple GB/sec transfer rate. Decisions, decisions. Could you imagine trying to back that thing up?

Obviously both!!!! :sly:

Internal for work, external for backup.:crazy:
 
2TB in a mirror raid Ultra 320 SCSI @ 15,000 RPM drives would be cool...
And the powerbill even greater :lol:

But yes... Though I'd prefer a Raid 5, say 14 disks with 2 online spares and triple redundant PSU...
 
i voted no, i'm currently happy with my 80gb laptop, although it's getting a bit full now, only 16gb left, but it's still doing well to hold 3556 tracks in my music collection and various files and games, along with a few large programs.

most i'd probably ever need is about 200gb i think.
 
I'm running a 4*250gb Seagate SATA setup with only 120gb free on the 4 drives total. It's pretty easy to fill 1tb when you download alot of data, dvd size files and so on. I'd go 4*320gb at this point if it was to be redone, they are the best bang for the buck right now, 400gb still too costly.
 
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