Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Thiol

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 26, 2008
693
0
Hi all,

I would have thought, given the pace of innovation, that we might have had hard drives larger than 1 TB by now. Has anyone heard of any potential rumors?

Thanks!
 

fluidedge

macrumors 65816
Nov 1, 2007
1,365
16
do we need larger than 1TB at the moment? If you need more than that then you're likely into RAID setups already which give speed and capacity.
 

iToaster

macrumors 68000
May 3, 2007
1,742
0
In front of my MacBook Pro
At the moment, there are only 1 Tb drives available, but there was news a while back about a successful shrinking of the read/write head, supposedly allowing up to 4 Tb desktop drives and 1 Tb laptop drives.
 

speakerwizard

macrumors 68000
Aug 8, 2006
1,655
0
London
Yeah, i heard about the 2TB drives, exciting stuff, I only just got my 1st 1TB as i dont like to get them straight away because of the apparent failure rate with new capacities, got me 3 750GB and 1 x 1TB now :) never would have thought that a few years ago, roll on petabyte!!! lol
 

Firefly2002

macrumors 65816
Jan 9, 2008
1,220
0
It's not nearly as easy to do as you seem think it is... hiting the 1 TB mark was only made possible by the new perpendicular recording technology, otherwise we'd probably be back at around 640 GB.

So as mentioned, not for a little while. Why do you want more? =/
 

aibo

macrumors 6502a
Jan 17, 2008
506
114
Southern California
When WD released their first 320 platter drive earlier in the year, their press release said that a 4 platter version would be on it's way too. So that's 1280GB... not sure of a timeframe though.
 

hexonxonx

macrumors 601
Jul 4, 2007
4,610
1
Denver Colorado
A person can never have a big enough hard drive. I bought a 1TB LaCie 2Big raid drive last month and it has only 450 GB left on it. At this rate, it will be full in about a month or two and I'll be buying a second one. They offer a 1.5TB drive but it is just two 750GB drives that work as one. I would love a 2TB drive!
 

Firefly2002

macrumors 65816
Jan 9, 2008
1,220
0
A person can never have a big enough hard drive. I bought a 1TB LaCie 2Big raid drive last month and it has only 450 GB left on it. At this rate, it will be full in about a month or two and I'll be buying a second one. They offer a 1.5TB drive but it is just two 750GB drives that work as one. I would love a 2TB drive!

But see, that's just nuts. Across two computers (and five hard drives), I think I use up a grand total of about 150 GB. I think about 50 GB of that is just video (DivX and avi, mostly... a few movies.. mostly TV shows). And a lot of that is redundant data! I mean, I guess not a TON, but some. If you count Photoshop CS3 Extended Mac and PC as redundant. I've also got CS2 and Photoshop 7 on this machine just... I guess because I can. I like PS7. One of my favorites. Actually... lol, I've got Photoshop 3, 5 and 6 on here too. And 5 on the PC. Granted that takes up not much space.... but still, you get the picture.

The majority is programs and whatnot.

What could you possibly be doing that needs that much space? Video work? Don't you ever get around to throwing out old stuff that you no longer need? I throw things out all the time, whether I need more space or not (which I do on my laptop's crappy 60 GB drive... one more reason I'm getting a new one soon enough..)
 

hexonxonx

macrumors 601
Jul 4, 2007
4,610
1
Denver Colorado
What could you possibly be doing that needs that much space? Video work? Don't you ever get around to throwing out old stuff that you no longer need? I throw things out all the time, whether I need more space or not (which I do on my laptop's crappy 60 GB drive... one more reason I'm getting a new one soon enough..)

All of my space is from TV shows and movies purchased from iTunes. This will also be my main purpose for buying a Mac Pro, the ability to have 4TB of drive space. It is amazing how much space six seasons of 24 take up.
 

Mackilroy

macrumors 68040
Jun 29, 2006
3,899
522
Across two computers (and 2.25 terabytes) I use... about 1.2 of that. Though 500 GB is dedicated to Windows, so technically I use 1 out of 1.5 TB on the desktop...

So I wouldn't mind having a 1+ TB HDD. Still have one free bay, and I could swap out to external enclosures if necessary. :)
 

Julien

macrumors G4
Jun 30, 2007
11,835
5,430
Atlanta
Hopefully in less than 5 years HDs will be like CRT monitors today.;) It sure will be nice not having to worry about crashes, backups, or even need Time Machine.
 

MacsAttack

macrumors 6502a
Jul 2, 2006
825
0
Scotland
Hi all,

I would have thought, given the pace of innovation, that we might have had hard drives larger than 1 TB by now. Has anyone heard of any potential rumors?

Thanks!

Segate have announced that they will intro a 2TB drive next year... Which means that Hitachi (and perhaps Samsung) will probably beat them to the punch (again) and get something on the market just ahead of them.

My guess is 12 months before anything hits the market.

Segate are also going to enter the SSD market - and have threatened to sue other drive manufacturers over some nebulous patent violations that they just haven't previously bothered to pursue for all the years SSDs have been in production. Guess Segate need to level the playing field a little as they are about the only big player getting into the SSD arena who do not make their own flash memory.
 

JesterJJZ

macrumors 68020
Jul 21, 2004
2,443
808
What could you possibly be doing that needs that much space? Video work? Don't you ever get around to throwing out old stuff that you no longer need? I throw things out all the time, whether I need more space or not (which I do on my laptop's crappy 60 GB drive... one more reason I'm getting a new one soon enough..)

I keep just about everything. Video and Graphics work. Never know when an old project can come in handy. I keep stuff backed up on mirrored bare drives. Right now I have everything on 250s, plan on moving everything to 1TB drives once they get cheaper and cut my space by 75%.
 

hexonxonx

macrumors 601
Jul 4, 2007
4,610
1
Denver Colorado
No kidding. My 1TB drive has only 20GB left after being filled with movies and TV shows over the last 4 months. I'll be getting another 1TB drive next week.

I just brought home my new dual quad core Mac Pro from the Boulder Apple store. I have also ordered two 1TB drives that I have to pick up soon from a local store and I will be installing them. I'm going to partition one of them so that Time Machine can make backups of the OS drive only. Then I have over 500 GB of TV shows and movies to copy over! Ahhh the joys (and smells) of a new Mac!
 

Firefly2002

macrumors 65816
Jan 9, 2008
1,220
0
SSD 512GB will be out before fall.

Yep, and at $20,000 who can resist?

You guys are nuts, lol. Six epis of 24? 24's not even that good =p

I have.. most of two seasons of Supernatural, and It's right now at about 13 GB, I guess.

DivX is probably almost as good as what's downloaded from iTunes.. and probably a better compression algorithm. Of course, I didn't pay for it, so that makes it.. even better...er.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.