How fast do you fill up your hard drive(s)?

**Taosaur** · 09-12-2012 07:35 PM

There's always some discussion in computer buying/building threads of how much space is 'enough.' My rule of thumb is to shoot for my current collection doubled plus 20%: (Cx2)x1.2

I still end up picking up external drives between builds, so it's safe to say my data collection doubles about every two years, give or take six months depending on what I'm doing at the time.

I built up maybe 3-5MB of files in high school in the '90s, which grew to about 80MB in college, and then stalled while I was an itinerant hippie for a few years. I bought my first PC in 2004 (and discovered DV within a month IIRC), and proceeded to outgrow first a 40GB then a 140GB then a 500GB hard drive. It took me maybe two years from there to break the 1TB barrier, and maybe two more to bump up against the 2TB ceiling. File sizes of all kinds get larger over time, and if you're an active techy sort you accumulate new projects with data archives running into the tens or hundreds of GB each (and that's without doing any 'real' coding/design).

How long have you been accumulating data? How often do you run out of space? Has anyone held steady for a while? Are you relying on the cloud/streaming, or physical media, or just not finding new things?

**AURON** · 09-12-2012 08:25 PM

I'm pretty reckless.....I have about a gig of important files backed up on cd's, and everything else gets reformatted every now and then. I don't use my computer for gaming, and I'm on a really slow connection so at the most, I'll probably use about 20gigs.

**khh** · 09-12-2012 11:16 PM

I've been collecting data since 2004 when I got my first laptop, with a 40 GB hard drive. My collection expanded from there to a 160 GB hard drive, 500 external, stationary computer with 1.5 TB, extra 1.5 TB disk for it and the 2 TB external drive I got last. I reckon I've been doubling the amount of data about every 1.5 years.

**Taosaur** · 09-12-2012 11:30 PM

Originally Posted by Auron

I'm pretty reckless.....I have about a gig of important files backed up on cd's, and everything else gets reformatted every now and then. I don't use my computer for gaming, and I'm on a really slow connection so at the most, I'll probably use about 20gigs.

So I take it you don't really keep any music, movies or other media on your PC, or you consider what you do keep disposable? Do you keep that stuff around on physical media like commercial CDs and DVDs, or rely entirely on TV and radio? If your connection is slow I'm guessing you don't stream too much.

**AURON** · 09-13-2012 12:31 AM

Originally Posted by Taosaur

So I take it you don't really keep any music, movies or other media on your PC, or you consider what you do keep disposable? Do you keep that stuff around on physical media like commercial CDs and DVDs, or rely entirely on TV and radio? If your connection is slow I'm guessing you don't stream too much.

I don't watch much tv except for sports, and I've gotten rid of my entire DVD/Blu Ray collection....including my PS3. I still still stream Pandora on my way to college, and listen to sports radio on the way back. Honestly, I think I'm becoming a minimalist out of the given situations that have occurred over time.

When I'm finished with school, and have things stable in my life again, I can see myself building a gaming computer, and streaming things on it, but for right now, it's not really an option.

**Marvo** · 09-13-2012 01:48 PM

I have a couple full harddrives, one at 149 GB and one at 111 GB, and then I have a 2 TB drive which is at 20% full I think. I don't really download much stuff apart from games, which mostly go on the small harddrives, as external drives are not practical for gaming purposes, I think. TV shows and the occasional movie take up some space, but the real space eater would be my photography stuff and recordings from games.

Music takes up a small bit of space too, but really, it's minimal. I have a few discographies in FLAC, they certainly eat up a bunch of gigabytes.

**AURON** · 09-14-2012 07:47 PM

Originally Posted by Marvo

TV shows and the occasional movie take up some space, but the real space eater would be my photography stuff and recordings from games.

You got a youtube channel bro?

**Marvo** · 09-14-2012 08:31 PM

Aye. The sound quality is kind of poor due to my mic though. I have a new one now, but I haven't recorded stuff with it yet.

BEST CHANUL IN DA WERLD - YouTube

**Taosaur** · 09-14-2012 10:49 PM

I have a 500GB system drive, which I've been wanting to replace with a 240-256GB SSD, but I'm also saving for a used car so I'm thinking I'll be due for a new build before I actually get around to that upgrade

Pretty much all my data is on a 2TB external now, replacing a 1TB external which has some backups on it but otherwise isn't doing much, so I could probably rearrange things to have about 1.5TB free (seeing as I don't have room for any very complete backups, anyway).

**Jookia** · 10-10-2012 01:47 AM

2TB drive, 382GB used.

**Mzzkc** · 11-24-2012 06:00 PM

I've been running from 16GB for several months now without issue (admittedly just the partition size).

I do and store everything on the cloud, so there isn't much need for local storage.