I spoke with Seagate reps today at the SXSW music festival in Austin, and the main topic of discussion was storage in gaming consoles.
Seagate makes a large percentage of the hard drives used in PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles. My first question was whether users are actually using the 60GB hard drives on the PS3, and they assured me that not only were they using it, but in some cases it wasn't enough. (Did you know it's actually really easy to replace the PS3's 20GB or 60GB hard drive with a beefier 160GB drive? The guys I talked to said it was cake--the drive just pops out the side.)
The hard drives are filling up with things like legacy games, HD movie trailiers, and game demos. One of the Seagate guys said just the demo of Gran Turismo in HD is a full gigabyte.
Anyway, we chatted for a while, and later on in the discussion I asked them how soon I'd be able to carry a terabyte of storage in my pocket. I honestly didn't expect them to answer my question, but they did their best by giving me some numbers to work with.
Right now they've got 120GB pocket-size drives that can be used in portable media players, and they're increasing in capacity at a rate of 40 percent a year. They assured me that this rate is attainable and locked down for the next four years at least. We all looked at each other, waiting for someone to do the math. But no one did. And I'm way too dumb to do math on a Sunday morning, and way too smart to try. So Gearlog readers, if Company A has 120GB drives, and can increase the storage at 40 percent a year, how soon will we have 1TB drives? Leave your answer in the comments!
One last tasty tidbit, Seagate is talking about the possibility of 100GB one-inch drives by 2011 or 1013. I can't wait for the day when I can keep all my music as WAV files on my iPod!
Update: The Seagate rep just got back to me after doing the math. He told me there's a Seagate slide that "shows a 2.5-inch drive (the ones used in laptops) reaching 1TB by 2013. Using that calculation and assuming 40% growth stays as the annual growth rate, a 1.8-inch (the ones used in PMPs like video iPods) would reach 1TB by 2014." Bummer, that's farther off than I was hoping.
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March 12, 2007 12:12 AM
hey, this got sourced by
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/seagate-1tb-ipods-possible-in-2014-243288.php
and
http://www.qj.net/1TB-drives-by-2014-/pg/49/aid/85798
March 12, 2007 11:14 AM
120GB increased by 40% per year yeilds 1TB in
a little over 6 years. (6.3 years) 7yrs = 1.265TB
If the 120GB you reference is the current size of a 1.8inch drive (I don't know) I'd say look for 1TB 1.8 inch drives sometime in 2013.
March 12, 2007 12:01 PM
Fourty percent compounded growth over 6+ years requires a huge leap of faith and a couple of technology generations as yet undefined.
March 12, 2007 12:32 PM
The math itselt is quite simple, if you know what you're doing.
1.4 x 1.4 = 1.96, so basically the capacity will double every two years. They say the rate is locked down for the next 4 years. That gets you 120 x 4 = 480 GB. Assuming the rate stays the same, it will take another two years and a bit to hit 1 TB.
March 12, 2007 12:32 PM
Won't take 6 years - more like 2-3 years.
Nano tech is on the move.
March 12, 2007 2:04 PM
log(8+1/3)/log(1.4) = approximately 6.3 years
March 13, 2007 11:50 AM
I forget Algebra (or was it Calc?) so I used Excel:
120 * 1.4 = 168
168 * 1.4 = 235.2
235.2 * 1.4 = 329.28
329.28 * 1.4 = 460.992
460.992 * 1.4 = 645.3888
645.3888 * 1.4 = 903.54432
903.54432 * 1.4 = 1264.962048
March 14, 2007 2:57 PM
I also came up with an end result of 1264.9 thus 1 terabyte will be attained somewhere between yrs 6 & 7.
March 15, 2007 1:46 AM
1TB=(120G)*(1+0.40)^n; solve for n.
Not rocket science, but it doesn't provide for either disruptive beakthroughs (ie, not just incremental change), nor sanfus (perhaps our next President will approve funding more organ cloning research, but veto all 2.5" drives with capacities larger than 666 megabytes...claiuming that it is against God and man's interests to do so.
March 15, 2007 11:51 AM
over 900 gigs at end of 6 years, and over one tera in the 7th compounding yearly.
March 15, 2007 1:17 PM
Seeing as how all technology grows at an exponential rate, I'd imagen we'll see 1TB iPod's in >4yrs
February 25, 2009 1:57 PM
It won't be long. I remember when the original playstation only had 2 MB memory cards lol. That wasn't too long ago either. I have 160 GB on my laptop now and it isn't taking long to fill it up, so I'm hoping they come out with TB soon. It would be nice to see the next xbox with TB instead of GB! Then we wouldn't have to erase old games to make room for the new ones. Technology is changing, and it's happening fast. Before we know it, we will se PB!