just wondering about hard drives

[breezer]

With the advent of "super duper" sized hard drives what is the point?

I understand that with bigger storage capacity you can store more, i.e films (but who wants to watch a film on your pc? yes i know you can get a tv out card and connect it to a tv) but that then means your pc must be near tv either that or more "spagetti"

I also know that a hd doesnt store information logiacly, in that it doesn't store all the info at the begining then the next space, then the next etc

but what makes me wonder is although it is known where the info should be, surely it must search the hd to find what its looking for (or somewhere to put new info) so as its such a big hd will not the needle* wear out quicker seeing as it has to seacrh more as itts such a big hd?

or have i got my understanding all wrong?

I also broke an old hd to see inside,

so i know it has several literaly had drives (solid discs) stacked on top of each other each with a "needle" * to read / write onto each disc

But since the physical size of a hd is constant (isnt it? ) that must mean the "needle"* is moving over the same area more often, so it must wear out or wear out the disc quicker than say a smaller hd

* i called it a needle, although i know it actualy isnt and it reads / writes magenticaly, but dont know what else to call it.

OR should i just get my coat and wonder at the marvels of Elektrickery?

 

[Igorian]

When you format a drive, you set up a structure with an indexing system (such as FAT or MFT). The index will contain details such as starting cluster, so that the drive knows where to look for the data, rather than randomly scanning the drive.

The head (needle) doesn't actually touch the spinning platter. It floats a few microns above the surface. At one time, linear motors were used to position the head. These suffered from integrity problems when hot and also the motors would eventually wear out. Modern drives use voice coils, which are much more reliable and don't suffer from mechanical wear.

 

[breezer]

Thank you.

so are you saying that new "super dooper" big capaity dives should last longer by design?

 

[Igorian]

That's difficult to determine. I've had drives that have lasted over 10 years and others that fail in a few days.

 

[OvertonPlumber]

The whole point or perpendicular with its 4tb on a standard disk is that u can have 1 hd instead of 10.
Thats 10 less noise, 10 less heat.
I currenntly have 1.5tb across 7 hdss
3.4tb over 3 pcs

 

[eggplant]

eh ?

Back to the original, I do find that newer drives tend to fail faster than older ones, maybe because they are now selling more, therefore making more at once, and possibly because of that using cheaper parts or not controlling quality as well as before.

You would be suprised how many do watch tv/dvd's on their pc, consider a child or teenager, wants everything, tv/video/dvd/pc/etc, a pc with a tv card or a monitor with a tuner cuts out a some of that into 1 machine. Especially useful if they are in a small room.

 

[chaosss]

Talking about another point....why use a big drive.

In my place I have allocated a cupboard purely allocated to AV equipment. This means that in each room there are no boxes only a TV (makes it tider) and all the cables are channeled into the walls. This also gives the advantage of being able to share sources around.

My PC is in this cupboard (not near a TV) and I use it as a complete media centre. I run GBPVR (www.gbpvr.com) which is like media centre. This PC is my PVR (hence no video) one of my freeview sources, music server, stores all my pictures etc. etc. Any of this is available in any room of the house. Hence my need for big harddrives.

 

[eggplant]

I think the original point was, the size of some drives is way beyond the storage needs for the average person, even if you ripped all your music at 256 then you're looking at over 100000 songs on todays large drives.
Of course if you store dvd's on there then space will fill up much quicker.
I "only" have about 12 gigs worth of music, this is my entire cd collection! Mrs eggplants jukebox I made has about 5 x that and she has a LOT of cd's. Still nowhere near 700 gig though!
My main pc here has 3 x 120 gig (raid5 so giving 240 gig) which is more than enough, my server has less than that and its still plentiful for my needs.

 

[JohnD]

IMO it is better to have 2 drives than one enormous one. Then you can backup or image onto the spare for the day that will surely come when your main disk fails.

 

[eggplant]

Again, it depends on the individual requirements, as you imply, its a bit of a waste having a 400 gig drive with only 60 gig taken up and no backup.

 

[awibble]

It mainly depends what you plan on using your PC for.

Some people edit home videos on they computers, as the HD cameras become more popular space becomes more important.

Media Center PCs are becomming more popular, where you have a PC under your TV that becomes your DVD player, and then using a keyboard and mouse you an surf the internet, record TV (like Sky+) etc etc. All of this starts to makebigger HDD's more important.

I have a friend that has managed to fill a Sky+ drive within 2 weeks, thats pretty quick. If he could expandit, im sure he would drop a TB drive in, as its useable. If it was a media center PC it would be perfect, Imagine been able to watch any of your films without having to get the DVD out, just find the film and click play, thats where the big drives come in.

There is then commercial reasons for bigger drives, with sites like YouTube starting everywhere bigger and better drives are needed all the time.

 

[shenks]

It mainly depends what you plan on using your PC for.

Some people edit home videos on they computers, as the HD cameras become more popular space becomes more important.

Even without raw HD footage (i.e. only using standard DV PAL) you can soon chew up the storage space... 600GB and counting. Final edited footage is another addition especially if you have several target platforms.