IMPORTANT EVERYONE PLEASE READ...

[blackstone]

Curiosity...

Just out of curiosity, how much physical space does a 1 TB server occupy? Or is that something that you've never seen?

Back when I started in the printing/typesetting field, a 50 megabyte (yes 50 MB) disk drive was in a large cabinet. I always like to describe it as "the size of a washing machine." I'm talking 1980 or so.

 

[Unimatic1140]

how much physical space does a 1 TB

I'm not sure about the actual size of the server, but the disk drive is approximately 4 inches wide, 5.8 inches long and 0.8 inches thick! A long ways from 1980 or the Univac for that matter, the first commercial computer. Our smart phones are thousands of times more powerful!

 

[kb0nes]

Standard 3.5" spinning hard drives are available today in a 15 (Fifteen!!) Terabyte size.

A little maths for fun...

This is equal to 10.7 MILLION floppy discs!

Of a mere 21,400 CD-R's (which is stacked on top of one another would be 107 feet tall!)

There are not SSD's (Solid State Drive) that are in the 100Tb ballpark.

As Robert said, it is amazing how far we have advanced!

 

[DADoES]

 
Pic 1 & 2 -- a 1 TB hard drive on an 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper.  It's known as a 3.5" form-factor, meaning it fits in the same space inside the computer as a 3.5" diskette drive.  The diameter of the discs inside can be 2.5", 3.0" or 3.74".

The digital projectors at the theater each have 4 of these drives, with 2 of each paired in a RAID array for ~2 TB total storage on each projector (the 2nd pair mirrors the data for redundancy protection).

There are also 2.5" form-factor hard drives which are physically smaller (takes less space in laptop and notebook computers).

 

[mattl]

I've got a 4 Terra byte hard drive plugged into my router for file sharing, cost me $80 last fall, now you can get 10T for about the same price.   I can recall spending hundreds for a drive fractions of that size.  I few more years we'll be buying penta byte hard drives...

 

[sudsmaster]

My career from about 1985 to 2004 revolved around building, maintaining, and administering local area network servers. I remember the first IBMPC-XT machines had a 10 MB disk drive. Wow. A bit upgrade was to a 20 MB PC-AT. Double Wow. LOL. Plus the first XT hard drives were not as reliable as one would like. Towards the end I wound up working for a couple of disk drive companies.

Today I'm amazed at how the disk drive has improved and increased ion capacity. I bought my current system, a Dell desktop, with a 2 Terabyte drive, for less than $1000 at Costco a couple-three years ago. Just checked... it's about 14% filled. 86% free.

Oh yeah, keep up the good work, Robert. You are much appreciated!

 

[gus]

Hi Rob, you´ve understood perfectly well. I didn´t think of Ephemera as a third place on the web for this matter.  Thank you, very kind of you. Hughs Gus

 

[chachp]

That brings back memories...

 

<span style="font-family: 'courier new', courier;">I've also been in this business for a long time.  When I started out we were using Novell and everything was still green screen.  My first computer was an IBM XT that I UPGRADED to 256KB of RAM.  Two 5.25" drives.  That was a big deal then.  A friend gifted my a 10MB hard drive and I thought I'd be set for a very long time.  Just not having to switch disks to boot up the computer and load DisplayWrite was a big deal.</span>

 

<span style="font-family: 'courier new', courier;">Not to change the subject but any Halt and Catch Fire fans out there?  That sure is a stroll down memory lane for some of us.</span>

 

[super32]

Uni, thank you for all that you do! You have kept this site running flawless for so many years

 

[blackstone]

super32....

Scott
Like the name of your town (and valley); I'm in Springfield. Can't recall if I ever passed through Blackstone.
Fred

 

[ozzie908]

@unimatic1140

I am assuming that as I can post this that the switch over has occurred and without a hitch it would seem?

I too wish to add my thanks for all you do and I look forward to many more years of this lovely site to amuse and teach me ...

Austin

 

[sudsmaster]

novell

Yeah, I got my start with computers about 1983. Wound up running the company Netware server and eventually that turned into a15 year IT career. I also remember the "Netwars" between Netware fans and Microsoft's challenger, NT. Those were the days... not even sure if Netware is around any more...

 

[firedome]

Netware, Novell...?

ha!, I was an IBM programmer in the days of punched cards, JCL, COBOL, VSAM and DASDs, and before that in grad school used DEC PDP-8s and 11s, FORTRAN and punched paper tape drives... so now you know I'm reeaaaly old!

I'm always impressed how well this place works even when migrating to new systems.
Kudos!

 

[kenwashesmonday]

The main difference I notice is that the "my posts" button is much faster.  Thank you, Robert, for keeping this fine forum running like a swiss watch.