Re: How much storage do you need? Math fun!

[Robert Harris <robert_harris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

But that would give us full and complete digital preservation in a single
location.

Which means:

One would know where everything would be at all times.

All of that pesky original material could finally be junked to save
all that space.

Formats would never again be a problem as everything would
be of a single format.

It would all be safe on that format forever.

Let's begin the junking as neither Bob O'Neil nor I see any
problem with this.

RAH

Jim Lindner wrote:

> Did you REALLY want this answer? Well let's do some math.
>
> First of all - Forget Terabytes. We have about 3/4 a terabyte here now and
> that will store about 12 hours uncompressed video, but that is best case
> with no overhead or any database management or redundancy. So let's say that
> on a practical level a Terabyte will store 10 hours more or less to make the
> math easier.
> 10 Terabytes will store 100 hours
> 100 Terabytes will store 1,000 hours
> 1,000 Terabytes will store 10,000 hours
> 10,000 Terabytes will store 100,000 hours
> 100,000 Terabytes will store 1,000,000 hours
>
> I am not positive on this - and I am sure that someone will be kind enough
> to correct me but I think that this is 100 Exabytes.
>
> Now how much will that cost? Well we are talking about high performance
> drives here. Let's be generous and make believe that we could only buy them
> by the end of the year - at which time they will store a bit more. And let's
> say because it is the government that they can get really really good
> prices. So Let's say that they will be able to buy 100 Gigabytes for $1000.
> Now this is really cheap for the kind of drives we are talking about here -
> buy let's just say that this is possible because it probably is. That would
> mean that 1 Terabyte would be $10,000
>
> 100,000 Terabytes which would store 1 million hours of content would cost
> $1,000,000,000 or about a Billion Dollars - and that is just for the
> Drives - not the computers or anything else, and also not for the cost of
> getting it onto the disks.
>
> Now physically - how big is all that?
>
> Well it turns out that by the end of the year - you should be able to put
> about a Terabyte in a 19" rack mount wide that would take around 6 inches of
> space high. So 100,000 Terabytes would take 600,000 inches (19" wide) or
> 50,000 vertical feet. That would be a building that would be around 5000
> STORIES high one on top of the other - but on a more practical (haha)
> basis - most racks are 7' high - so that would mean 7,142 racks full of
> disk. It could be done  - but consider the impact of Moor's law on all this.
> 1 year later you would need half, next year half again. So while right now
> it would be technically possible - yes it would be... in about 5 years from
> now it will be almost realistic, and 10 years from now - it will be - Easy -
> why not?
>
> Now the heat - let's see - each drive gives off x btu's.......... Ok - back
> to work.
>
> Jim Lindner
> VidiPax - The Magnetic Media Restoration Company
>
> VP General Manager VidiPax Division
> Loudeye Technologies
> 450 West 31 Street
> New York, N.Y.  10001
> 212-563-1999 ext. 102
>
> www.vidipax.com
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