Drive Space

Back in 2001 when 300GB hard drives were first becoming available to consumers (albeit at steep prices) I suggested that the average home user would likely never need any more storage space than that. 300GB hard drives have dropped dramatically in price, with recent holiday offers putting them under the $200 mark (I picked up another 200GB drive for $89 at a 48-hour sale). At the time I caught a ton of flack suggesting my statement was akin to the mythical Bill Gates quote about never needing more than 640k.

Over 3 years later, I'm continuing to stand by that assessment, at least for the foreseeable future. I personally have over 1,000GB of data stored on multiple hard drives, but most of that is video that would be considered commercial in nature. Looking at my personal digital video and audio collection, I'm probably still far from normal and yet I've got room to spare within the 300GB. My 500 CDs worth of music, all recorded at better than the average file sizes quoted by MP3 vendors consumes a mere 15GB of space. I can record numerous TV programs on my Media Center PC, and yet, looking at my video space consumption, I've still got over 150GB of free space, relative to what I'm using for my entertainment needs. When will I run out? Hard to say, since I tend to burn shows I want to keep on DVD and delete the ones I'm certain I never want to see again.

Am I abnormal in my consumer behaviors? Probably. How many other people actually use 4 different portable media devices every week? Am I unusual in my pattern of burning shows I want to keep, thereby never hitting the invisible 300GB ceiling (which by the way, I don't consciously avoid)? How much hard drive space do you currently use at home for movies and video?