IBM's Pixie Dust to enable 400GB hard drives

[Bob The Great]

That's cool! 400GB's... I guess I should finnaly upgrade my 8Gb Hd. It's just a little behind the times.

With thes HD's and those new cds (I forget their name, but they are going to be able to hold something like a teribyte) we're going to be able to have some amazing new programs!

[No Limit]

I'm having trouble filling up my 40gb IBM hard drive as it is right now, but it's nice to know that you can hold a lot of data now on one hard drive instead of having to buy multiple hard drives.

[Nator]

Great! Now Microsoft can create a three teribyte operating system that crashes every time you do scandisk!

All this storage space won't do anyone any good unless the speed of the bus is increased and software improves to take advantage of processer speed.

[Bob The Great]

I agree with you nator. But once everything is up to speed it will be cool!

But amagine having a 500Mb map for whatever cool game is out. The detail would be amazing!

[voogru]

****.....400GB "Drools Over Keyboard"

-voogru

[daverme]

What IBM will do next is to port their already existing disk access technology (designed from the ground up for high capacity and fast access) to the PC, create a new platform and OS and blow Microsoft away.

[CMonster]

400GB Hard disks !-? What a day and age! 1.7GZ CPUs! 400mhz FSBs! Cheap DDR memory! Blazing fast video adapters!

Wow, I guess the hardware will actually be ready in time for the release of Microsoft's Windows XP. http://www.sysopt.com/news/gws/cdata/smile.gif

[Mark Stubblefield]

Do you guys have any idea how long it would take to defrag a 400gb hard drive? http://www.sysopt.com/news/gws/cdata/smile.gif hehe

[Ultima]

You're talking about defragging??

I'd hate to think how long it would take to format the thing.....under dos!!! LOL

Ya got a day or 2?? http://www.sysopt.com/news/gws/cdata/smile.gif

Ultima

[Sixpac]

Yeah, but can they make them any faster? I don't think storage size is the problem right now but access speeds are.

[feck_it]

Am I the only one to think that losing 20Gb of data is a pretty big mess?? what would happen if you lost 400?? how the hell could you back up that anount of data safely?

Dont get me wrong i'm all for large Hdd's but would it not be better and have too LARGE disks and be safe than one HUGE disk that is unsafe?

Until we get better backup devices the larger hard drives will still not be as effective in the real world (way too much to lose).

(just my odd way of looking at stuff i s'pose http://www.sysopt.com/news/gws/cdata/redface.gif)....)

[desmocat]

lets see...I could rip out the 4 30 gig seagates in my raid machine, replace them with 4 of these babies, cool..1.6 terabytes.
I will then proceed to download the internet. http://www.sysopt.com/news/gws/cdata/smile.gif Well, I better wait until I get DSL at least....
This coupled with the new FMD technology would make for an awesome setup. That would be about the only thing that would be useful in trying to backup such a large drive.

[tcody]

Whats the big deal how much software do you use that would take 400GB. Make them faster and then you would have something. Decrease the speed bottle neck in the computer chain and increase the bus system speed also.

Really go racing.---__-__-__-_--

[LennyCald]

About 4 years ago I remember reading about captured ALIEN technology...specifically NEW storage technology. Hmmm...
Lenny C.

[Nator]

Next thing ya know, IBM will design a hard drive where the atoms rotate so that four drives could exist on the same atoms, just on different sides! Wild idea, but IBM has some of the best research in the market.

Too bad the same can't be said for Microsoft. Knowing them, they'll design an operating system which won't work with the drive!

Anyway a lot of issues remain, like formating, defraging, stability, etc. However, the potential is nothing short of amazing.

[the corrupted]

I agree with the naysayers. There's too much going against it to make it practical at the moment.

**** it would be nice though.

[ilcm]

makes the dreams of owning a terabyte box come true...wonder what the price on these drives will be?

[vass0922]

Hmmm we're building a SAN (Storage Area Network) at our client site that is roughly 1.5 TB

But that's like 36 - 36 GB drives (RAID)
Now just have like 6 drives ... MUCH easier to deal with lol
Less cables too http://www.sysopt.com/news/gws/cdata/smile.gif

Hmm although we do need some pixie dust for the DLT tapes LOL
Unless we start buying some recordable DVD's!!

[chemist]

Can you imagine the offshoot for this technology? Video recorder/players and surveylance uses will allow really long term comprehensive recording. Also long term repetitive physiological monitoring ability for chemical, heart and brain defects. Many other uses in addition to obvious direct computer storage options.

[Henriroa]

Well it seems to me to obvious what's happening in the industry. That is to say all competitors are working together at least at some level not detected by the media. And as far as alien technology? Hmmmm...I guess that's up for discussion. As there is absolutely no way we can be the only life form in the universe, making an assumption that we're alone is just ignorant.The ideal that I see these companies working towards is a conglamoration of different technology and platforms working together as one unit. For Instance,...An IBM drive...An AMD processor and point to point bus...An IEEE1394a apple firewire...etc. You get the idea, molecular self assembling chips capable of Octoganal drive support more akin to analog human brains and not digital 0's and 1's for alignment between molecules. Wait a couple more years and everything you're reading today will be history.

[IronClad26]

umm....Moore's Law anyone? Okokok..its not really a law...but a very solid theory?..I think so...time will dismantle it...but it has worked for a while and this is one of the technology break throughs that is disproving it...with that said...lots more things and at an accelerated rate will also begin to disprove Moore's Law...hmmm Moore's Law on Moore's Law?...hmmm...Moore's Law Squared?

What I am getting at is that everyone is worried about stability, defraggin, scannin, Microsoft Craptology....these will all improve drastically before we even see the 400 GB Drives...they will improve even more by the time you and I can afford the 'Pixie Dust' Drives. We are not the first by a long shot to come up with these questions...trust me ppl are already working on it.

As for the whole Alien comment...get real or just go build a house next to Area 51 and spend the rest of your life wondering...Ooo ooo but the processor was not invented until that alien balloon thing crashed in the desert...blah blah blah...we are talking technology not some theory based on something secretive crashing in the desert..remember marketing sells...you've been sold. Nuff said.

[Jono]

Geeeeezzzzzzzzzzuuuuuuuusssssssss!!!!! Sweet!!! Does this mean the next version of Office is still guna take up 20% of my hard disk space!!! LOL!

[hocheung]

You talk about defagging this drive... imagine how long it'd take to FORMAT this f***in' drive, how about ScanDisk??? Oh, well... maybe new technologies will come out... see this drive in the video-editing magazines soon!

[Lusifer69]

This drive is'nt going to really be phisically biger. It all being packed together means faster access times because the head will not have to do so much work. Mabey we will get a lot closer to that true ATA/100 mark a lot sooner! ;-)

[Pete M]

I dread to think of what defrag times are gonna be like http://www.sysopt.com/news/gws/cdata/smile.gif

[Pete M]

I dread to think of what defrag times are gonna be like http://www.sysopt.com/news/gws/cdata/smile.gif