Hard disk drives

[robertwgross]

I was running out of hard disk space, so I dropped in at my local electronics retailer and picked up a Western Digital 250GB disk.

The price was only $139, with a $30 rebate certificate.

It seems that we've come a long way from the hard disk drive units that held 5MB and took up the space of a small washing machine.

---Bob Gross---

[Belmondo]

I can actually remember paying about $1200 for a 20mb Rodime external drive (serial) for my Mac Plus. I really thought I'd died and gone to heaven to be able to boot from a hard drive.

[robertwgross]

Over a long period of time, I figure that my demand for hard disk space doubles every year.

Tomorrow -- Terabytes!

---Bob Gross---

[Aylwin]

My first hdd was 40MB. Before that, I was completely happy with the 5.25" floppies on my XT (without the turbo switch). :)

Next was 400MB (the largest available at the time) and I thought I couldn't possibly use it all up. It actually did last quite awhile though.

Now, 500GB over 3 disks and I'll be lucky if they don't fill them up before the end of the year. :roll:

[Jesper]

I can remember sitting in the train some years ago with my new 1 GB harddisk in my hand, thinking "Wow, one billion bytes, what an incredible amount of space, I'm never going to fill that up!". Now, I have about 35 GB of digital photos on my 80 GB disk and it's getting full, so I bought an external 160 GB drive for € 100. That's 62.5 cents per GB. That first 1 GB drive sure was much more expensive than 62.5 cents.... :?

[PacAce]

I was running out of hard disk space, so I dropped in at my local electronics retailer and picked up a Western Digital 250GB disk.

The price was only $139, with a $30 rebate certificate.

It seems that we've come a long way from the hard disk drive units that held 5MB and took up the space of a small washing machine.

---Bob Gross---

Well, Bob, it looks like you just bought yourself some "old" technology hardware for a very "good" price. :D
And I don't blame you. I did the same thing when the 160 GB went down in price half a year ago. I've got 4 of them sitting in my PC right now with the 80 GBs they replaced sitting in a Firewire case and attached as externals. I thought I was set for life now with all these gigabytes of storage. Then I found out that the new computers (the ones that matter to me, that is) are now coming out and using SATA drives instead of the ATAs. Bummer! I can't migrate my 160 giggers over and use them internally on these new computers. :( :evil: (Well, actually I could if I got myself an Ultra133 ATA card but that'll be one more card I may not have room for. :? )

[robertwgross]

Well, Bob, it looks like you just bought yourself some "old" technology hardware for a very "good" price. :D


Yes, I prefer to stay just a notch or two below the cutting edge. It tends to be much more cost-effective there.

---Bob Gross---

[CyberDyneSystems]

ATA/IDE to SATA converter;

http://www.xpcgear.com/idehardrivto.html


http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=698690&sku=C184-10153

[Cadwell]

That's 62.5 cents per GB. That first 1 GB drive sure was much more expensive than 62.5 cents.... :?

I remember buying a half GB SCSI drive for an Apollo for £25,000... (yes, twenty five thousand pounds sterling). That's about $91,500 a gigabyte (not allowing for inflation).

[PacAce]

ATA/IDE to SATA converter;

http://www.xpcgear.com/idehardrivto.html


http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=698690&sku=C184-10153

Cool, CDS. This is useful info to know. Thanks. :D

[Scottes]

I spent some time testing a 300-meg SCSI non-volatile RAM drive once. Great drive - a full-height 5.25" drive bay packed solid with chips. Quiet, and fast! Only $3,000, I think, but that was 1989 or thereabouts.

[PacAce]

Anybody ever hear of the IBM disk drive called the 2311. It was a removable disk used on the IBM mainframes in the '60 and this thing was the size of a plastic cake holder. And it held a whopping 7.25 MB of data! :shock: When you took the disk out, you could actually see the 5 or 6 magnetically coated platters.

[Scottes]

Anybody ever hear of the IBM disk drive called the 2311.

I remember something very similar. The "drives" were called Disk Packs, I think. The platters were open to the air, but "protected" by the plastic cake holder cover, and went into a machine a bit smaller than a washing machine. If the machines weren't flat solid on the floor they'd move across the room due to the velocity of the spinning disks. And the sounds of a head crash would get you diving towards the floor as the screeching was way above tolerable volumes.

[RichardtheSane]

Before I bought my 10D I used to hate replacing hard drives. I never bought a new one because I was low on space, I simply uninstalled stuff. I alway saw the hard drive as a 'non performance upgrade' wheras I could spend the cash on more ram or a faster CPU or video card.

Now, for the second time in 3 months, I have enjoyed buying a hard drive. I now like the fact that I have nearly 500Gb of storage... and I still feel the need for more!

I think, like Bob, that I will have doubled again within a year. I actually came to the realisation that I needed more space on my backup drive when my last (much needed) backup went well over the size of my 40Gb backup drive (and that is just photos)!

[CoolToolGuy]

Anybody ever hear of the IBM disk drive called the 2311. It was a removable disk used on the IBM mainframes in the '60 and this thing was the size of a plastic cake holder. And it held a whopping 7.25 MB of data! :shock: When you took the disk out, you could actually see the 5 or 6 magnetically coated platters.
I first fooled with 3330 removeables (247,520 bytes per volume), and they had the cake holder. The place I was at had a couple rows of them that looked like the local laundromat. They had STC DASD (disk), and had one box with 4 spindles and 8 logical volumes that used to 'dance' on the floor if you had a lot of activity on it.
Time was that you needed one DASD guy (which I was at the time) for every 10GB of DASD. Now we have 2.5 terabytes and 2 guys managing it.
Memories...
Have Fun,

[robertwgross]

Fundamentally, what we have proven here is that there is a large bunch of old computer farts.

---Bob Gross---

[CoolToolGuy]

Fundamentally, what we have proven here is that there is a large bunch of old computer farts.

---Bob Gross---

Mr. Gross, I resemble your implication... :roll:

Have Fun,

[PacAce]

Fundamentally, what we have proven here is that there is a large bunch of old computer farts.

---Bob Gross---

Guilty as charged! :mrgreen:

I'm really looking forward to the day when I'm with my future grand kids and I whip out a 2 TB CF card and say to them, "You know there used to be a time when data storage devices used to the size of a large cake holder but you could only fit the equivalent of one image file in that dern thing!" :D

[CoolToolGuy]

Fundamentally, what we have proven here is that there is a large bunch of old computer farts.

---Bob Gross---

Guilty as charged! :mrgreen:

I'm really looking forward to the day when I'm with my future grand kids and I whip out a 2 TB CF card and say to them, "You know there used to be a time when data storage devices used to the size of a large cake holder but you could only fit the equivalent of one image file in that dern thing!" :D

Geez, by then they might also question how you could fit an entire image in 7.5MB! :roll:
Have Fun,

[Belmondo]

I'm really looking forward to the day when I'm with my future grand kids and I whip out a 2 TB CF card and say to them, "You know there used to be a time when data storage devices used to the size of a large cake holder but you could only fit the equivalent of one image file in that dern thing!" :D

By then, you'll only be able to get about 40 images on the card with the 50gb images in the 1Ds Mk VII. Based on the past, you know we'll always be chasing our tails in the storage business.

BTW, you can always tell us old farts from the youngsters. We have small hard drives, and we have a certain air about us.

[Scottes]

Fundamentally, what we have proven here is that there is a large bunch of old computer farts.

Hey! I'm not old!

Though I will hit 40 in a few months... Will I be old then?

[CoolToolGuy]

BTW, you can always tell us old farts from the youngsters. We have small hard drives, and we have a certain air about us.

I met one the other day. He introduced himself as Mr. Flat U. Lance, and he said he was going to 'see Alice' (Cialis).

Have Fun,

[Aylwin]

Off topic but... I'm amazed at the age range here. I don't know of any other forums with such a wide range of ages. I feel pretty old in the hi-tech area with all these hotshot kids. But here I'm still relatively young. :)

[PacAce]

Geez, by then they might also question how you could fit an entire image in 7.5MB! :roll:
Have Fun,

JPEG-Small and very low res mode! :mrgreen:

[blinking8s]

i only have 2x WesternDigital 80gb serial ATA hard drives...in the market to expand it all though

[PacAce]

Fundamentally, what we have proven here is that there is a large bunch of old computer farts.

Hey! I'm not old!

Though I will hit 40 in a few months... Will I be old then?

Scott, consider yourself in the lower threshold of oldiness! :lol:
I bet you're really looking forward to that middle age experience some people call the mid-life crisis! :mrgreen:

[Scottes]

I bet you're really looking forward to that middle age experience some people call the mid-life crisis! :mrgreen:

Looking forward to it? ! ? ! ?
I thought it was happening now! Argh!