cdanteek Posted February 7, 2009 Report Share Posted February 7, 2009 article...click here.. Last year, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies was the first-to-market with a 1 TB drive, then Seagate was the first to break through the terabyte barrier with a 1.5 TB drive. This time, Western Digital was first to launch a 2 terabyte drive. Samsung? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
REDWAGON Posted February 7, 2009 Report Share Posted February 7, 2009 Not sure how long it might take to get to 6 TB HD's but I suggest that if the technology and design of flash drives continues to increase as it has, that will become the HD of choice. Frank... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grandpabruce Posted February 8, 2009 Report Share Posted February 8, 2009 I am one, who really doesn't think that the huge hard drives are necessarily a good thing. I can't imagine trusting storing that much, important data files, in one place, ie, putting all of your eggs in one basket. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gi7omy Posted February 8, 2009 Report Share Posted February 8, 2009 I'm more concerned really with the practicality of 6 TB drives - there is a physical limit to the head gap in the read/write heads and that can't really get any smaller and still have a magnetic field. Reducing the platter thickness is also problematic as the flux density of the heads will at some point penetrate through to the second layer. That only leaves increasing the number of platters, but to do that and still maintain a viable medium would mean abandoning the present 'half-height' and go back to the bigger drives. As Bruce says, the logical forward step here is for solid (pen type) drives rather than mechanical Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grandpabruce Posted February 8, 2009 Report Share Posted February 8, 2009 I'm more concerned really with the practicality of 6 TB drives - there is a physical limit to the head gap in the read/write heads and that can't really get any smaller and still have a magnetic field. Reducing the platter thickness is also problematic as the flux density of the heads will at some point penetrate through to the second layer. That only leaves increasing the number of platters, but to do that and still maintain a viable medium would mean abandoning the present 'half-height' and go back to the bigger drives. As Bruce says, the logical forward step here is for solid (pen type) drives rather than mechanical I don't have the knowledge of how a hard drive is constructed, and the physical limits of the hard drives. I do, however, have the knowledge of the "school of hard knocks", when a hard drive fails, and how one can lose a lot of valuable, money making, business information, when that sumb**ch goes belly up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gi7omy Posted February 8, 2009 Report Share Posted February 8, 2009 I meant to say Frank - sorry Bruce for taking your name in vain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grandpabruce Posted February 8, 2009 Report Share Posted February 8, 2009 I meant to say Frank - sorry Bruce for taking your name in vain I know, on the pen drive portion, that you meant Frank, and no need to be sorry. You really didn't make a vain attempt, at taking my name in vain. You did well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdanteek Posted February 8, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 8, 2009 I am one, who really doesn't think that the huge hard drives are necessarily a good thing. I can't imagine trusting storing that much, important data files, in one place, ie, putting all of your eggs in one basket. Does it matter if you lose 100GB or 6TB of "important data files"... Other than some folks have a bigger basket... cd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grandpabruce Posted February 8, 2009 Report Share Posted February 8, 2009 Does it matter if you lose 100GB or 6TB of "important data files"... cd If you have to ask, you haven't been down that road. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdanteek Posted February 8, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 8, 2009 If you have to ask, you haven't been down that road. You missed the point. You also missed quoting half my post when you replied... cd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
REDWAGON Posted February 8, 2009 Report Share Posted February 8, 2009 There coming---It's just a matter of time !! And I can't wait http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/samsun...t-ssd-20080527/ Even if the huge 1TB mechanical drive get here, I'll bet that 90% of the users that buy them will probably partition them up into several other smaller drives !! What a waste Frank... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bimicher Posted February 8, 2009 Report Share Posted February 8, 2009 Does it matter if you lose 100GB or 6TB of "important data files"... Other than some folks have a bigger basket... cd Would you rather lose $6000 or $100? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendon Posted February 8, 2009 Report Share Posted February 8, 2009 Even if the huge 1TB mechanical drive get here, I'll bet that 90% of the users that buy them will probably partition them up into several other smaller drives !! What a waste Frank... Hi Frank, What will be wasted by splitting a large drive into several logical units?? It's not as if you're going to be using files that are thousands of GB in size, so you don't need a partition to be several TB or more, and splitting it into smaller logical units in NTFS doesn't waste the space so where's the waste? On the other hand, splitting the drive can enhance data safety. Apart from mechanical/electronic failure which will kill the entire drive regardless of whether it's split or not, there is the logical failure which you see so often when Windows forgets what it's doing, or where it is, or who it's talking to. This logical failure will usually affect only one partition at a time, so if you partition a drive into four parts you have reduced the risk to the data on any one of the parts down to 25% of what it would be if the drive was partitioned as one unit. The smaller logical units are easier to defrag or backup than a huge one, so data safety is enhanced even further. You also have the opportunity to make a partition for only the swapfile, and to use different drive letters for data and programs, and you don't need to take a packed lunch when you're looking for a file on a smaller partition. You do have to remember more drive letters, but apart from that splitting up a large drive seems to me to be sensible and useful. General comment: Having huge drives can be a mixed blessing, and huge portable drives are a liability. I had the misfortune to have to work with a Maxtor 1TB portable, and it had an "iffey" interface which was misbehaving. I think it was a timing problem in the USB 2.0 interface, and it would work properly on only one old machine out of six computers at three sites, but the case was sealed so we couldn't just flick the drive into a rack to access it. The USB 2.0 interface is a bottleneck for hard drives and writing to large pendrives is painfully slow anyway, so huge portable drives will need a fast and reliable interface if they are to be at all useful. We'll have to hope USB 3.0 fixes that, because there's little point in having a pendrive which takes 5 hours to fill. At the moment the 640 GB 2-platter drive is faster and uses less power [requires less cooling] than the 1 TB or larger drive which requires three, four or more platters. Perpendicular recording is nearing theoretical maximum densities as Daithi mentioned. Server class drives seem to be heading back towards 2.5" drives instead of 3.5" to minimize power use and access times, so I think the writing is on the wall for large platter and multi-platter hard drives. The next few years should be quite interesting. Regards, Brendon [edited to correct my arithmetic - platter capacities were around 250 GB but are now around 320 GB, not 640] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
REDWAGON Posted February 8, 2009 Report Share Posted February 8, 2009 Hi Frank, What will be wasted by splitting a large drive into several logical units?? It's not as if you're going to be using files that are thousands of GB in size, so you don't need a partition to be several TB or more, and splitting it into smaller logical units in NTFS doesn't waste the space so where's the waste? On the other hand, splitting the drive can enhance data safety. Apart from mechanical/electronic failure which will kill the entire drive regardless of whether it's split or not, there is the logical failure which you see so often when Windows forgets what it's doing, or where it is, or who it's talking to. This logical failure will usually affect only one partition at a time, so if you partition a drive into four parts you have reduced the risk to the data on any one of the parts down to 25% of what it would be if the drive was partitioned as one unit. The smaller logical units are easier to defrag or backup than a huge one, so data safety is enhanced even further. You also have the opportunity to make a partition for only the swapfile, and to use different drive letters for data and programs, and you don't need to take a packed lunch when you're looking for a file on a smaller partition. You do have to remember more drive letters, but apart from that splitting up a large drive seems to me to be sensible and useful. General comment: Having huge drives can be a mixed blessing, and huge portable drives are a liability. I had the misfortune to have to work with a Maxtor 1TB portable, and it had an "iffey" interface which was misbehaving. I think it was a timing problem in the USB 2.0 interface, and it would work properly on only one old machine out of six computers at three sites, but the case was sealed so we couldn't just flick the drive into a rack to access it. The USB 2.0 interface is a bottleneck for hard drives and writing to large pendrives is painfully slow anyway, so huge portable drives will need a fast and reliable interface if they are to be at all useful. We'll have to hope USB 3.0 fixes that, because there's little point in having a pendrive which takes 5 hours to fill. At the moment the 640 GB 1-platter drive is faster and uses less power [requires less cooling] than the 1 TB or larger drive which requires two platters. Perpendicular recording is nearing theoretical maximum densities as Daithi mentioned. Server class drives seem to be heading back towards 2.5" drives instead of 3.5" to minimize power use and access times, so I think the writing is on the wall for large platter and multi-platter hard drives. The next few years should be quite interesting. Regards, Brendon Excellent positive analysis for huge mechanical Hard Drives Brendon. But now turn your thoughts and start reading all the good reasons for having SSD drives and also all the bad reasons for having a huge mechanical drives. Then compare the two. Oh, and abouit "waste"--My thoughts there for all the bad things about a mechanical drive that you really don't go into further. My thoughts were not of loosing space". And I don't think one can compare USB to SSD drives. My money is on SSD drives being the drive of choice in about 3 to 5 years from now. But time will tell as you suggested. Cheers Frank... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grandpabruce Posted February 8, 2009 Report Share Posted February 8, 2009 You missed the point. You also missed quoting half my post when you replied... cd Huh? I didn't miss the point. And, I answered your question, sort of. Yes, it does matter how much data you lose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ggrussell Posted February 9, 2009 Report Share Posted February 9, 2009 Frank - there are also dangers in SSD drives, too. I had a fairly new (abt 6mo old) 2GB CF card for my camera. Turned the camera on one day and it appeared to only be 100MB. Removed it, put it back in. Same thing. Removed it and put it in my computer's card reader and it wouldn't work at all. Dead... Fortunately, the company replaced it free. After doing some research, apparently solid state memory devices can only be read/written so many times before they fail. Granted a SSD drive would be faster, but they have a ways before becoming as reliable as mechanical drives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdanteek Posted February 9, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 9, 2009 Frank - there are also dangers in SSD drives, too. I had a fairly new (abt 6mo old) 2GB CF card for my camera. Turned the camera on one day and it appeared to only be 100MB. Removed it, put it back in. Same thing. Removed it and put it in my computer's card reader and it wouldn't work at all. Dead... Fortunately, the company replaced it free. After doing some research, apparently solid state memory devices can only be read/written so many times before they fail. Granted a SSD drive would be faster, but they have a ways before becoming as reliable as mechanical drives. No, just expensive... MTBF 1,200,000 hours.. SSD Drives at Newegg.... cd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
REDWAGON Posted February 9, 2009 Report Share Posted February 9, 2009 I'll have to agree with cd on the MTFB, Gary. From all I have read, they do have a limit as far as read/write, but it's nothing to be worried about when it's that many hours. The MTFB on most all mechanical HD's has a limit too. And SSD drives do "read" way, way faster than Mechanical drives, but they also write a bit slower. (attached) Some of the Good things about SSD drives: Saves on Power Much less heat No mechanical moving parts Way better streaming read performance/watt---(attached) Much faster start up & access times Much faster random access do to no read/write heads No file fragmintation---Love this one !!! No Noise Operational heat range much higher Smaller and lighter Overall Raw performance is way, way, way better--(attached) Some of the Good things about mechanical HD's Much less cost/Capacity Higher capacity---This is a big difference now but I suggest will change in the next few years. Faster write speeds---This is changing fast on the newer SSD drives however Frank... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ggrussell Posted February 9, 2009 Report Share Posted February 9, 2009 I sure as hell didn't get that much from my memory card. I've also seen RAM go bad in a matter of months, too. Thanks, but this is one time I can definitely wait. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
REDWAGON Posted February 9, 2009 Report Share Posted February 9, 2009 I sure as hell didn't get that much from my memory card. I've also seen RAM go bad in a matter of months, too. Thanks, but this is one time I can definitely wait. Yep Gary, I hear what you're saying about waiting---Me too. But that's only because they don't have to total capacity compared to mechanical HD's (yet) and they are way to expensive so far. Another interesting article about Flash vs Ram SSD--- Frank... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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