Computer storage space has transformed over recent years to a point where we are actually talking about how many terabytes we have in our systems instead how many gigabytes. Home theater PCs are no longer limited in storage space thanks to the affordability of large hard drives. I’ve been slowly upgrading my HTPC storage by purchasing larger drives the past few years and now run two 1-terabyte drives in my main HTPC. As I was installing my most recent 1-terabyte drive I wondered how much storage other HTPC owners have in their systems.
A SageTV forum member surveyed Sage users, and I’ve created polls on the remaining two major HTPC software forums. So, the results (above) cover 230 HTPC users including SageTV, BeyondTV, and Windows Media Center (The Green Button). It’s quite amazing that 77% of the sampled HTPC respondents have capacities greater than 1 terabyte. Even more significant is 30% of respondents utilize over 3 terabytes of storage on their HTPCs.
For more HTPC storage analysis, continue reading at Brent Evans Geek Tonic.
Yup, just picked up a Windows Home Server from HP, and was disappointed I couldn’t buy it with a 1TB drive rather than the standard 500GB. Had to download the manual to make sure I could upgrade the system drive (yes you can, though it looks to be a bit painful, since a system restore is required and the box doesn’t have a DVD drive). Similarly, I was looking at a new desktop PC and a little concerned that two drive bays or even three might not be enough. I like the Drobo and all, but for real-time storage its performance sucks. Internal drives are just so much faster.
Will be interesting to see what the next drive size beyond 1TB will be. The last step was 750GB to 1TB. Will the next size be 1.25TB? Seems lame. I’d bet on 1.5TB probably, since 2TB seems like too big a step. Since there are now 5400RPM 500GB laptop drives, it seems high time for the 1TB size limit to be bested.
Seems like we’re about to run into a bunch of new limits–2TB max for USB disk drives for example. I wonder if there are others just around the corner…