NA6C-Guy

iTrader: (1)

I agree, but I just don't think it will be on the PB scale within 15 years. I could be wrong though, technology does grow fairly exponentially. 15 year growth from 15 years ago could be more like 5 years to us now. Never know. With a lot of other computer technology, things have seemed to have slowed down a bit. Things were on a very quick pace in the early 2000's but in the last 5 years I think it has kind of hit a wall. There will be a large technological breakthrough that will boost it, like always happens every 10 years or so. Very well may see PB storage within that time, I just don't think the need will arise. With more complex programs that require more space, you also get programs that require less space for the same amount of functionality.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

I don't think it's likely that the bitrate of "high quality" video is going to increase dramatically in the foreseeable future. H264 is already > DVD quality, and IMO approaches BluRay.

What I think may change is how the average consumer collects and stores their video media.

For the past 30+ years, we've had home video in some form or another; be it Betamax, Laserdisc, VHS, DVD, etc. The quality has gotten better and the media has gotten smaller. But what hasn't changed is that each movie has been contained within a unique physical device that you slip a cover over and store on the bookshelf.

I occasionally hear people speculate as to what will come after BluRay, and my answer is, most likely, nothing at all. I don't mean that BluRay will live forever. Far from it, I see it as a stopgap technology that will die in the near future. What I mean is a paradigm shift. The next big thing in home video won't involve going to a store and bringing home a physical object, having an object delivered to you by mail, or even getting an object out of a vending machine at the local supermarket.

In the next wave, you'll simply push a button and the movie will appear.

You might say that we're already there, what with video on demand and such, but to me that's a parallel technology, not a competing one. People buy DVDs rather than only renting them because they want to have the media available for use whenever they want it, and without recurring costs. Hell, my niece has probably watched every single Dora / Spongebob / Disney Princess DVD in the house at least a hundred times each. That sort of thing requires ownership (or at least, indefinite possession) of the media in question, it's not the sort of thing that PPV / VOD will address. We're finally at a point where genuinely high-speed internet access is being taken for granted in most households, and where common consumer-grade devices (like my Xbox 360) support the concept of being able to play media from a hard disk onto the TV without being a computer geek.

And that is what will drive the push for PB-grade consumer storage.

It's just a question of when.


Maybe 10. Probably less. Assuming that the 3.5" form-factor does not become obsolete, and assuming that aerial density continues to increase at its historical rate, we'll get there sooner than you think.


Now that is a very interesting observation. Care to expound? I mean, are we talking about the physical hardware (a box with wires coming out of the back) or the whole paradigm of a monitor, mouse and keyboard?



Funny, that. Seems like every manufacturer has had a bad run at some point or another.

I owned a 75GXP, which was the specific model that inspired that moniker. The interesting thing is that mine developed the click while it was still in the warranty period, except I was too damn lazy to ever do anything about it. I moved the drive from primary to secondary service (I was doing a fair bit of video editing at the time, so I used it as my render disk) and the damn thing just never got around to actually failing. It ran for several more years until I finally retired the whole computer.

Apart from that one model though, they've been great. So far as I can remember, IBM was the first company to institute a standard 3 year warranty. And they've been at the cutting edge of storage for as long as the name has existed. I've owned at least six IBM / HGST drives over the past ten years, and never had a single loss-of-data incident.

'Course, hard drives in general are a hell of a lot better than they used to be.


Processor speed certainly has. Damn physics...

OTOH, processor capacity (complexity of core, cores per die, throughput, etc) has continued to march on. So has RAM. I doubt we'll see too many drives spinning at 30,000 RPM in the near future, but I certainly expect their capacity to continue to grow.

NA6C-Guy

iTrader: (1)

Your guess is as good as mine. I think maybe a little of both. I can't see the keyboard and mouse setup lasting much longer, nor the typical computer layout of sitting at a desk behind a monitor. I think it will be more of an integrated home theater system where you can do everything from your couch or borg alcove

I also think in the near future you will see computing technology take a more biological turn. Not saying they will be living tissue, but maybe will be modeled more closely to biology, like the human brain. Maybe information will no longer be measurable on a scale like we currently use. Technology always seems to find a way to take the most mind boggling turn possible, so who is to really say what it will be 15 years from now.

But on a less sci-fi note, I agree on your point about video on demand and things being more digitally stored than hard copies, but much like how the high def TV's took many years to catch on, and many people still don't have them, I don't see something that revolutionary being the majority by 15 years from now.

I don't think platter technology will be around much longer at all. SSD is probably what will become the standard of the next 10 years, or something similar in design. Why make a storage device with many moving parts when you can have something as simple and reliable as solid state.

Actually, I change my mind on the 15 year thing. Now that I am actually sitting here thinking of how long 15 years actually is, I do think it is very possible. Especially with the exponential rate at which technology advances. I mean ****, 15 years ago was 1995 lol. I barely even had a computer at that point. For some reason just saying 15 years didn't sound like that long to me before. The rest of my **** stands though, just on maybe a 10 year scale instead. Time flies when you are bored to death.

NA6C-Guy

iTrader: (1)

Damn it! Someone reply to this! This is a topic that interests me, I like theoretical stuff and future technology. I demand someone continue this topic for my entertainment!