Why would anyone need a 1TB drive? [Archive]

ditzy

Mar 7, 2009, 09:16 AM

I thought that 500 GB hard drive would be big enough for me when I bought my iMac. But I've found recently that when I want to download shows from itunes, the biggest deterrent is not the price but how much space it will take on my hard drive. I wish I'd upgraded to 1TB.

Hellhammer

Mar 7, 2009, 09:17 AM

People who works and music and photo/videography things. Single Full HD movie can take up to 15GBs.

ucla95

Mar 7, 2009, 09:33 AM

People who works and music and photo/videography things. Single Full HD movie can take up to 15GBs.

Had no idea a movie could be 15GB, reason enough right there!

thelongmorrow

Mar 7, 2009, 09:36 AM

uncompressed raw files from my HD camera EASILY take up about 100GB a project, plus the actual projects that come from that. HD video takes up a lot of space, so does 3D stuff. my Itunes Library is like 100GB as well because of my TV shows and movies. Final cut pro takes up something like 55GB just for the suite, PLUS people who use boot camp want to have a good amount of space reserved for windows. When my new Mac Pro comes I am stuff as much HD space as I can into it.. !!!!!:D:D:D:D

Hellhammer

Mar 7, 2009, 09:46 AM

Had no idea a movie could be 15GB, reason enough right there!

1TB sounds ridiculous for a normal user, but for a pro user over 5TB is usual

shadoe1989

Mar 7, 2009, 09:50 AM

I remember back in the day when ps1 had games on CD'S! I thought they will never be able to use all of that space its just not possible.

iBookG4user

Mar 7, 2009, 09:55 AM

I do a lot of photography and right now I'm running 2.5TB worth of external hard drives and have less than 200GB of space remaining. And once I get the new camera that I want, the files will be roughly 3 times as large so I'll quickly need to add another 1TB or 2TB's worth of external storage.

MattZani

Mar 7, 2009, 10:03 AM

Depends on your PC usage, i've pretty much filled my 250Gb with Music and DVD's, and thats 'Light' use, im starting to to DSLR Photography and Editing, and will be fitting a 500Gb Drive, and Buying a 1Tb External.

One Photo can easily be 10Mb, thats jpeg, a Raw one can be much bigger, and then you have an edited version aswell, 'one' photo can take upto 200mb.

Pyrotechnic

Mar 7, 2009, 10:03 AM

I am an average user and have ordered a 1TB. The reason for doing so is that over the past few years I have purchased better digital cameras and video cameras and each time the files sizes increase, obviously due to them being better quality and technology. By purchasing the 1TB, i have at least done something to future proof my Mac, at least short term.

Hellhammer

Mar 7, 2009, 10:04 AM

I remember back in the day when ps1 had games on CD'S! I thought they will never be able to use all of that space its just not possible.

And PS3 uses Blu-ray disks now which can be up to 400GB (more in future)

I thought that 40GB PS3 would be enough and now it has 500GB :D

petenice15

Mar 7, 2009, 10:48 AM

I went with the 1TB for 2 reasons. First I have a HD camera that eats up space. Secondly, with my EPP discount it only cost $90, so why not?

eRondeau

Mar 7, 2009, 10:58 AM

"The content will expand to fit the space available."
-- bMan's 1st Rule of Data Storage

notjustjay

Mar 7, 2009, 11:03 AM

Back in the days when Firewire was popular (sigh), people were importing video over Firewire from their miniDV camcorders. This video was a fixed rate of about 3.6 megs per second, so an hour of DV video takes up 13 gigs of hard drive space. You can imagine a couple hours of vacation footage, plus the scratch space needed to edit, took up a pile of space.

NOW, with High Definition video, it takes up even MORE space, especially if you're using iMovie or Final Cut Express and converting things into the Apple Intermediate Codec before you edit.

Plus digital cameras are constantly getting more megapixels, so photos are getting larger... what used to be about 400KB per image is now 4-6 megs per image, easily.

Higher-resolution, high-def video downloads from iTunes, DRM-free and less compressed iTunes music, it doesn't sound like much individually but it all adds up very quickly!

My 12" PowerBook had a 40 gig hard drive which I kept filling. This MacBook Pro has a 120 gig hard drive which I thought would be plenty... now it's pretty full and I'm looking at replacing it with a 300+ gig HD...

AAPLaday

Mar 7, 2009, 11:19 AM

I have 320GB on my imac and thats the biggest i ever had on any of my home computers however with all my media it soon fills. I have ripped a few cds to apple lossless and a season of the west wing along with with all my photos both from my phone and my d40. So far ive managed to fill 120 GB of my hard drive. I could really do with getting a bigger one but will wait for the next imac refresh (or one after) and get a new computer with bigger internal.

robanga

Mar 7, 2009, 11:23 AM

I have filled 1TB with HD Video and now starting on a second one

bbq2k

Mar 7, 2009, 12:08 PM

I remember seeing my first 4GB drive back in the mid-90s. It was as big as an dishwasher, the centerpiece of some tech show we were attending. Everyone stood around it gawking and asking, how in the world could we fill a 4GB drive?! :)

When you're editing 1080p video in ProRez format, the rule of thumb is 1 GB/min!

cleric

Mar 7, 2009, 12:21 PM

People who works and music and photo/videography things. Single Full HD movie can take up to 15GBs.

Well compressed movies. Some blu-ray streams are 30+gb.

Tomorrow

Mar 7, 2009, 12:24 PM

1 Tb might sound like a lot now. In two or three years it won't.

Many people regret buying too little. Almost nobody regrets buying too big.

czachorski

Mar 7, 2009, 12:29 PM

iMovie imports HDV at 12 GB/hr in large mode and 50 GB/hr in full mode. Even at large, we import at least 200-300 GB per year, so I am quite happy that I got a bigger hd.

oldalbion

Mar 7, 2009, 12:31 PM

I have a 500G HDD in my Dec 08 iMac and although as a basic internet and a bit of iPhoto user I have never even remotely come close to 1TB! I really wish I had gone for the 1TB HDD and regretted not doing so quite quickly. I regularly check Macintosh HD space and do this much more often than necessary....to the extent of a kind of mental illness :D

No, you have done a sensible thing, always go for space even if it means just a bit more money.

ebd.i.am

Mar 7, 2009, 12:34 PM

You have never have too much hard drive space.

I got the 640GB drive but I plan on upgrading to a 2TB drive once the prices drop.

wakerider017

Mar 7, 2009, 01:05 PM

And PS3 uses Blu-ray disks now which can be up to 400GB (more in future)

I thought that 40GB PS3 would be enough and now it has 500GB :D

400GB blu-ray discs? That is news to me. Hahaha

On a side note, 1TB is no longer considered excessive for an average/home user.

Between all my multimedia (pictures, movies, documents, itunes, eyetv, etc.) I can fill up that space reasonably fast if I am not careful.

Also it is smart to buy the computer for the future. If you are going to own it for a few years you should upgrade it appropriately. HD movie downloads are getting more and more popular.

alphaod

Mar 7, 2009, 01:05 PM

When you store 12GB 1080p movies, store tens of thousand of 14-bit RAW files along with edited copies, 1TB is nothing.

Kilamite

Mar 7, 2009, 01:08 PM

I have a 2TB hard drive set up in RAID1, so essentially 2x1TB hard drives, equalling 1TB of storage.

I like to be safe, especially with that much data.

wakerider017

Mar 7, 2009, 01:13 PM

I have a 2TB hard drive set up in RAID0, so essentially 2x1TB hard drives, equalling 1TB of storage.

I like to be safe, especially with that much data.

Um don't you mean RAID 1. It sounds like you are mirroring.

RAID 0 is striping and NOT safe at all...

Kilamite

Mar 7, 2009, 01:46 PM

Um don't you mean RAID 1. It sounds like you are mirroring.

RAID 0 is striping and NOT safe at all...

My bad.. meant RAID1 :o

Spanky Deluxe

Mar 7, 2009, 01:53 PM

When you store 12GB 1080p movies, store tens of thousand of 14-bit RAW files along with edited copies, 1TB is nothing.

Exactly. My main machine has ~3.3TB in and it still won't be enough in a few months! I'm a bit of a data hoarder though, I hate deleting stuff!

iMacmatician

Mar 7, 2009, 01:58 PM

I'm a bit of a data hoarder though, I hate deleting stuff!Same here, I keep just about everything.

And I think the 250 GB HD in my MBP will be too small sooner than I think...

...probably will need an external HD for long videos and such in a year or so.

Theaser

Mar 7, 2009, 02:43 PM

My 45 minute short movie once costed me 220 gigs of storage, uncompressed.

Tesseract

Mar 7, 2009, 03:02 PM

Video editing takes up the most, by far. 1tb doesn't even come close nowadays to fulfilling the space needs for HD video editing.

I do that, plus run two seperate versions of windows (3 partitions including Mac OS X), and I'll run a lot of games (many of which take up 10gig a piece), as well as plenty of photoshopping and photo storage.

That... is why I would need a 1TB drive. Or a couple of em.

synagence

Mar 7, 2009, 03:06 PM

Same as many others...

Got 150Gb iTunes library, Wife has 80Gb iTunes library, i have 70Gb of RAW Digital Camera files plus the processed ones, I have them backed up onto a USB drive and a mirrored NAS drive

Data volume gets burnt pretty easily these days .... we're leaving behind terrabytes of data legacy...

Justibackwardsn

Mar 7, 2009, 03:10 PM

Musicians, film makers, and some graphic designers need more than that space. Also, if you download wav files instead of mp3 files you will probably need about 4+TB for your music. A wav file is about 1gb a piece for just a simple song, but the quality is completely lossless. I have about 750 mp3s at 320kbs and the songs are about 6 minutes long a piece. The file size for those are about 17mbs and my entire music library takes up 10gb of my hard drive. Most people have more music than that, but probably at 192kbs which is roughly about 3-5mbs per song. (192kbs claims that it is "CD Quality" but its not. Wav files are.)

Now if JUST audio is 1gb and lossless, i couldn't imagine what a movie would be like at lossless! I think even with blu-ray they have to compress it some.

czachorski

Mar 7, 2009, 03:49 PM

I have a 2TB hard drive set up in RAID1, so essentially 2x1TB hard drives, equalling 1TB of storage.

I like to be safe, especially with that much data.

I also keep a full back up of my media off site on an external HD to protect against the worst at my house. In the event of a fire or theft, I will always have my precious videos and photos.

Eanair

Mar 7, 2009, 03:59 PM

Probably for a casual user, yeah, 1 TB is a bit overkill for regular storage and so on.

But definitely those who are power users and using their Mac for professional reasons can use 1 TB, or even more.

And if you back up your whole computer a lot though, even for a casual user, 1 TB could probably come in handy.

Mike in Kansas

Mar 7, 2009, 04:15 PM

I don't know why you'd need 1TB internal, but if you don't want any external drives on your desktop, then I guess you'd want as much internal storage as possible. I took the approach that a 320GB internal drive is plenty big enough for my apps, OSX and a Bootcamp partition, but I have 2.25TB in external FW storage. Photos and video, like others have said, eats up HD space.

bobr1952

Mar 7, 2009, 04:17 PM

I guess each person uses what they need--personally I need a lot and also have 2.5TB of external storage--with 2TB online at all times. I really like using external storage as it is more flexible for me--I've used only about 200GB of my internal drive.

yoak

Mar 7, 2009, 04:50 PM

To have somewhere to put all my HD footage.
Came home from location today with 30GB of footage and that´s just one day. It adds up quickly. I´m sitting here now tryin to find some space to do a 3rd back up and I have to delete stuff to make room. You can never have enough

dukedvl

Mar 7, 2009, 06:35 PM

My first computer had a 40MB HDD. When I bought it the rep at the store told me I would never ever have to worry about filling it up.

I am a believer in buying however much you can afford when it comes to memory and drive space.

Goldenbear

Mar 7, 2009, 07:38 PM

"640k ought to be enough for anyone."

Seriously?:confused:

LOL, I was thinking of that exact quote when I read the subject line :D

Bill Gates was truly a visionary :rolleyes:

1TB sounds ridiculous for a normal user, but for a pro user over 5TB is usual

Umm... are you serious???

All this "normal user vs pro user" stuff is completely BS, imho. So what about the average Joe user who knows nothing about computers but wants all his DVDs ripped to his hard drive? Or the grandfather who wants to keep all the video of his grand kids? Are these "pro users", or a "normal users"? It just comes down to what someone wants to do with a particular computer.

The fact is, you can never have too much hard drive space. Especially today, where audio/video files are getting bigger and bigger.

kurosov

Mar 7, 2009, 07:46 PM

LOL, I was thinking of that exact quote when I read the subject line :D

Bill Gates was truly a visionary :rolleyes:

Umm... are you serious???

All this "normal user vs pro user" stuff is completely BS, imho. So what about the average Joe user who knows nothing about computers but wants all his DVDs ripped to his hard drive? Or the grandfather who wants to keep all the video of his grand kids? Are these "pro users", or a "normal users"? It just comes down to what someone wants to do with a particular computer.

The fact is, you can never have too much hard drive space. Especially today, where audio/video files are getting bigger and bigger.

Usually people who rip dvds to their hdd or even home movies do so using highly compressed or even lower quality file formats. Many of them are happy with the drives that came as standard with their machines.