I just wanted to know everyones thoughts on this, with a the possibility of an imac upgrade in the the next few thoughts who hopes for and what are your thoughts on the possibility of a 1tb hard drive starting and the possibility for a 3tb drive?
External storage has its own set of risks, especially if you have pets, kids or idiots lurking around your workspace.
External storage has its own set of risks, especially if you have pets, kids or idiots lurking around your workspace.
For the price Apple would likely charge few people could afford it![]()
I suppose with time it will come, although a single 3tb drive seems a bit much. Personally I'd rather see an easier DIY upgrade path for internal storage.
I would rather have a Thunderbolt drive enclosure that doesn't have a stupidly high price tag. $400 for 1TB is insulting.
I would rather have a Thunderbolt drive enclosure that doesn't have a stupidly high price tag. $400 for 1TB is insulting.
Add to that the state of hard drive prices from manufacturers due to flooding...one would be looking at a $600 upgrade for a 3TB drive.
When I bought my November 2009 iMac, I had about 600GB of data... but I bought a 2TB machine forecasting that I would outgrow 1TB over the life of the machine. I am currently >1TB, so it was a good move.
I am planning to get an '12 iMac once it is refreshed. I would absolutely get a 3TB drive, even though my current dataset fits into 2TB. There is a high chance that I will outgrow 2TB over the lifespan of my next computer.
My computers are double backed up: Locally via TM/TC and to the cloud via Crashplan+. I have no problem committing my data to the single drive.
/Jim
Who wouldn't want more storage space? (with all else being equal.) Heck, as long as we're asking for more...
Who wants the next line of imacs to have 3 yottabytes?
I don't think there is any question that it is just a matter of time before they do offer 3TB drives (and beyond). We haven't hit some sort of magical barrier where 2TB is all everyone will ever need now and forever. Even if Thunderbolt takes off, there will still always be a desire for a high-capacity internal drive of some sort.
I have a stack of Firewire drives sitting here, but there are still some things I like to keep on my internal drive. With the internal drive I don't have to worry about me or anyone else picking up the wrong drive and wiping my data, I don't have to worry about the cord getting pulled out and having my data get corrupted and I can rely on OSX for a simple and modest level of login security for my data against prying eyes.
...for now. In 5 year's time there will be people complaining their machine is equipped with only 5TB disk space.imo 2TB is plenty for 99% of the people out there.
...for now. In 5 year's time there will be people complaining their machine is equipped with only 5TB disk space.Remember 10 years ago 10GB wes considered plenty...
...for now. In 5 year's time there will be people complaining their machine is equipped with only 5TB disk space.Remember 10 years ago 10GB wes considered plenty...
True to some degree, BUT, I don't think the relationship is linear. In other words, I think that hard drive capacity is expanding at a faster rate than people's storage needs are expanding, and I think it's been that way for quite a while. When I got my first laptop many years ago I opted for the 40 gig drive instead of the 60 gig drive because I thought 40 gigs was huge and would meet my needs for many many years - but within a year I was already out of space and constantly offloading stuff onto optical disks. Then a few years later I bought a 500 GB drive, and it took me a couple of years till I filled it up. Then I went up to 1.5 TB of storage space, and I that's fulfilled my storage needs for several years and I don't see needing more for quite a while.
This is partly due to hard drive capacities expanding at a very fast rate, but I think a larger part of it is due to broadband and streaming services maturing and becoming an increasingly large component to how we use our computers. For example, a very large chunk of my storage space used to be filled with downloaded tv shows and movies, but today I have netflix, hulu, etc., so now I store almost no video files locally which means I actually have much lower storage needs than I used to have.
tl;dr hard drives have gotten larger quickly, but most people's need for local storage space has grown slowly over the past few years and might actually have plateaued or even shrunk.
You've got a point by saying that. Honestly, I just picked some random numbers to illustrate what I meant. When I was choosing my iMac I considered even the 500GB drive large for my needs (coming from a laptop with 320GB of which I used no more than 100GB) but a year later I don't think such drive is 'large' as 1/3 has already been filled. For a home computer it satisfies my needs as the only user of the computer. Had I been to choose a new computer now I wouldn't have preferred an iMac with a HDD maller than 1GB. I expect 1GB will be the offering for the entry-level 2012.True to some degree, BUT, I don't think the relationship is linear. In other words, I think that hard drive capacity is expanding at a faster rate than people's storage needs are expanding, and I think it's been that way for quite a while. When I got my first laptop many years ago I opted for the 40 gig drive instead of the 60 gig drive because I thought 40 gigs was huge and would meet my needs for many many years - but within a year I was already out of space and constantly offloading stuff onto optical disks. Then a few years later I bought a 500 GB drive, and it took me a couple of years till I filled it up. Then I went up to 1.5 TB of storage space, and I that's fulfilled my storage needs for several years and I don't see needing more for quite a while.
This is partly due to hard drive capacities expanding at a very fast rate, but I think a larger part of it is due to broadband and streaming services maturing and becoming an increasingly large component to how we use our computers. For example, a very large chunk of my storage space used to be filled with downloaded tv shows and movies, but today I have netflix, hulu, etc., so now I store almost no video files locally which means I actually have much lower storage needs than I used to have.
tl;dr hard drives have gotten larger quickly, but most people's need for local storage space has grown slowly over the past few years and might actually have plateaued or even shrunk.