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Author Topic: 1.21 jigawatt hard drives  (Read 1261 times)

Offline caldera

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1.21 jigawatt hard drives
« on: March 29, 2011, 06:06:23 PM »
What is the purpose of having monster-sized hard drives in a personal computer?  Don't think I will ever fill more than 25% of my 320 gig HD.
I see people installing 1.5 TB drives, what gives?

Another question - listed in Control Panel, under System: My CPU is E8400  @3.0GHz   2.67GHz.  Why does it have two speeds listed?

Please enlighten this savant of idiocy.  :)
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Offline Chalenge

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Re: 1.21 jigawatt hard drives
« Reply #1 on: March 29, 2011, 06:08:08 PM »
Well... my FSX install exceeds your total disk size.  :D
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Offline caldera

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Re: 1.21 jigawatt hard drives
« Reply #2 on: March 29, 2011, 06:12:12 PM »
So it's game related?  What's your total space used vs available?
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Offline The Fugitive

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Re: 1.21 jigawatt hard drives
« Reply #3 on: March 29, 2011, 06:13:16 PM »
Computers for some are turning into home entertainment systems. Soon you'll have movie stored on them in stead of DVDs. Music, who knows what else.
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Offline Chalenge

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Re: 1.21 jigawatt hard drives
« Reply #4 on: March 29, 2011, 06:15:43 PM »
Not a good question. I have a total of eight hard drives and I dont allow any one drive to exceed 50% of its capacity.

And YES I have drives that are storing movies (depending on which system we are talking about).
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Offline caldera

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Re: 1.21 jigawatt hard drives
« Reply #5 on: March 29, 2011, 06:24:38 PM »
So is having a mondo-huge hard drive beneficial in any way compared to what I have (assuming no movies or FSX)?  Just can't imagine needing so much space.  Wouldn't it be better to have multiple small drives?
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Offline gyrene81

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Re: 1.21 jigawatt hard drives
« Reply #6 on: March 29, 2011, 06:33:53 PM »
depends on the drive design and what you're going to do with it. old timer mentality is use a smaller drive for the os and large drives for storage to maintain decent read/write/seek times...now days with 1.5tb drives running at 10k rpm with 32-64mb of cache for around the same price as a 500mb, may as well buy the bigger drive and enjoy the extra space.

myself i use smaller drives for the primary drive and large drives for file storage/backup. i would rather trade off space for a bit better quality since the primary drive is taking the burden of my activity and my secondary drives pretty much just sit there spinning...and i'm not in to spend the money on ssd drives.
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Offline soda72

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Re: 1.21 jigawatt hard drives
« Reply #7 on: March 29, 2011, 08:27:20 PM »
As "The Fugitive" has already mentioned I think the majority of those installing 1TB or more are using their PC's more as a HTPC. 
Start using services like Itunes or anything similar to it and you'll be looking for those 1TB drives soon enough...
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Offline Tigger29

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Re: 1.21 jigawatt hard drives
« Reply #8 on: March 29, 2011, 08:54:42 PM »
I have a 140GB Raptor and a 300GB WD 7200rpm drive and out of that 440GB of total space I'm using 210GB of it.

My music, pictures, movies, etc fills up not even 20GB of all of that.  The rest is FSX, Aces High and a few other games.

I personally don't have a need for 1+TB hard drives either but I also don't download a lot of movies.  You get into hi-def movie downloads (and rips) and it can be several GB per movie.  That adds up fairly quickly I would assume.
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Offline DREDIOCK

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Re: 1.21 jigawatt hard drives
« Reply #9 on: March 29, 2011, 09:40:17 PM »
Quote from: Tigger29 on March 29, 2011, 08:54:42 PM

I personally don't have a need for 1+TB hard drives either but I also don't download a lot of movies.  You get into hi-def movie downloads (and rips) and it can be several GB per movie.  That adds up fairly quickly I would assume.

Im pretty much the same way. The stuff I typically keep on my HD has never yet filled one up before I was ready for a new computer. At which point I usually just get a newer HD as well.

But as its pointed out.  It all depends on what you use your PC for. I know someone that managed fill to capacity with other then the OS and a few minor programs a 400 Gig HD with nothing but pictures to the point the thing would barely run anymore. And she's not even a photographer.

As it is whenever your buying or building a new machine. First identify your budget. Then conclude what it is you are planning on doing with it and go from there.
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Offline BaldEagl

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Re: 1.21 jigawatt hard drives
« Reply #10 on: March 29, 2011, 10:54:01 PM »
I've got a 250 Gb OS/Application drive, a 250 Gb storage drive and 2x 500 Gb network back-up drives in my main machine.  I have a 35 Gb NASCAR Racing installation on my main drive and 60+ Gb of additional optional files for that installation on my back-up drive then I have other games, movies, music, pictures, documents, etc., etc.

My second machine has a 20 GB Win98 installation and a 60 Gb XP Install plus 3x 120 Gb storage and local backup drives while my laptop has a 60 Gb OS/App drive plus 2x 60 Gb storage and local backup drives.

I'm actually thinking I might need another or a bigger drive as one day I'd like to rip my 2000+ CD's onto my machine.

Like Challenge I never run a drive over 1/2 full.  They seem to start acting up if filled beyond the half way mark.
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Offline PFactorDave

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Re: 1.21 jigawatt hard drives
« Reply #11 on: March 29, 2011, 11:34:05 PM »
I'm a professional photographer, the cameras I use to shoot weddings shoot at 21 mega pixels.  A 21 mega pixel image is pretty darn large and a bunch of them eat up a hard drive very quickly.

Heck I have a 10 mega pixel camera that I use for sports photography, it shoots 8 frames per second.

Think of it this way, the memory cards I use in my cameras are 16GB cards.  I fill a card about half way during a typical High School baseball or softball game.  This time of year, I am shooting 6 to 8 games each week.  So if I shoot 6 games in a week, and for arguments sake, only fill my 16GB card 1/4 of the way each game (which is definitely less then reality), that's 24GB each week.

It adds up fast.
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Offline RTHolmes

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Re: 1.21 jigawatt hard drives
« Reply #12 on: March 30, 2011, 03:25:46 AM »
Quote from: caldera on March 29, 2011, 06:06:23 PM
Another question - listed in Control Panel, under System: My CPU is E8400  @3.0GHz   2.67GHz.  Why does it have two speeds listed?

CPUs these days generally reduce the clock speed when the PC isnt busy to save power, reduce heat and prolong life - the lower figure is the speed the CPU is currently running at (it isnt dynamic though - only shows the speed at the moment you open the system properties). some (eg. i5/i7) also have a burst mode where they can boost the clock speed for short periods. my 2.67GHz Xeon runs at 1.57GHz most of the time.
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Offline Krusty

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Re: 1.21 jigawatt hard drives
« Reply #13 on: March 30, 2011, 09:44:30 AM »
I did a 30-second video for AH once. Not counting the exported actual final product, all the working files, the sounds, the separate clips, the saved editing files, etc.... When compressed together they took up over  1GB of space. My "Soviet Tragedy" one ran 2.5GB I think. Even on a 100GB HD you run out of space fast.

I did a fresh install of Win7 on a 100GB drive and after installing AH and 1 other game (figure maybe 10GB max for both?) I was down to 50GB free.

Everything takes its toll.

I have a 1 TB drive with only 250GB left free on it. That will probably clear up as I go through and clean out old program and game files, etc, but a lot of the things I do with videos and just watching other videos, all take up tons of space.

Not to mention the skin files. Oi! and film files!! I have over 7GB of files in my AH directory and all its sub folders (before I backed them up to start fresh on the new system).

Steam games go way out of their way to use as much HD space as possible, too.

You'll need more space when you need it. When you need it you get something that will last a long time. That's why folks are getting 1TB, 1.5TB, and 2TB drives. So they don't HAVE to get another in 6 months.
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Offline VonMessa

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Re: 1.21 jigawatt hard drives
« Reply #14 on: March 30, 2011, 10:26:41 AM »
Quote from: caldera on March 29, 2011, 06:06:23 PM
What is the purpose of having monster-sized hard drives in a personal computer?  Don't think I will ever fill more than 25% of my 320 gig HD.
I see people installing 1.5 TB drives, what gives?

Another question - listed in Control Panel, under System: My CPU is E8400  @3.0GHz   2.67GHz.  Why does it have two speeds listed?

Please enlighten this savant of idiocy.  :)

My music/Karaoke library would easily fill at least 2 of your hard drives   :D

I've owned a Disc Jockey/Entertainment business for the last 12 years.  That's a lot of time to collect music which correlates to a lot of storage   :aok
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