I remember when I got my computer thinking that 40GB was a monstrous amount of space and way more than I could ever possibly need. Today, I had a program freeze up and decided to defrag the hard drive. The computer refused because I didn’t have enough space. I had less than 1GB left. I dumped a bunch of files and now I’ve got 5GB of space, so I’m doing a backup and then will dump all the photos, videos, and old issues of Shimmer off my computer. Hopefully then, I’ll be able to finish the project I’m working on..
Amazing how fast it goes. Pretty much the reason I installed two 250gb hd last time I upgraded my desktop.
If anyone asks now what capactity hd to look for in a computer, I ask back, “do you have graphics or photos to work with?” If yes, I recommend no less than a 120gb.
In that regard, I suppose it’s surprising that I haven’t run out of space sooner. I mean, I’ve had this computer since 2005.
There are other files that gobble space — a larger .pdf with graphics, for instance. High res photographs, graphics and that can swallow space pretty fast.
If this is a desktop, then it’s fairly easy to upgrade. Laptops are a little more difficult.
Taking three years to fill 40gb isn’t that bad. I’ve met people you are video geeks. They fill that up in months.
Most of the space is being taken up by audio files and pdfs of Shimmer and other design projects. I’m dumping everything that I’m not likely to need quick access to.
My first laptop had 5gb, and I just MARVELED at how much space I had. It was like a huge data cavern I could never fill!
This computer has 200.
Ooo! I remember the first time I saw something that had 1GB and I thought that was a ridiculous amount of space.
I feel old remembering the time when computers had no hard drives and you had to use a floopy disk to run programs.
On a side note, when you do buy a new hard drive, they’re going to be huge! (I’m eagerly anticipating bigger flash drives in the future.)
Heck, I remember punch cards.
When I was a co-op student at TVA in the late 50s there was this poem hanging on the wall in the computer center:
“Here he lies molding,
His dying was hard,
They shot him for folding
an IBM card”
And you let me draw on them!
To me this is kind of funny. Even before I had to reformat (stupid Comcast), I had plenty of space left on my 20 GB hard drive — and that was with all the files and complete website downloads of a huge team website for the Site Fights in triplicate (I’m still sorting out duplicate files so I can eventually move that mess off the hard drive, lordy).
Oh, I do find it a little silly that I’ve run out of space. On the other hand, I have backups of all the audio stuff I do, all the graphic design and all the issues of Shimmer. There are some big files on here.
My first computer has a 40MB hard drive, and that was consider big back then!
40GB is good, but if you have videos (especially uncompressed ones that you do editing with), it can still fill up in no time.
I think this time it got filled quickly because I backed all my websites onto it, which had a lot of audio. So, I’ve got duplicates of all that.
I think my first computer that actually had a hard drive was 20Mb. I thought that was incredible. Now my iPod holds more than ten times that amount. I remember being excited when I had the high density floppy disks. Weren’t they 720kb? And yes, I remember punch cards, though I never used them.
I feel like I should go tell kids to get of my lawn now…
I still have floppy disks and a disk drive. Lord knows what I’m going to do with it.
You got kids on your lawn? Why I used to have to walk to school uphill in the snow. Both ways!
I’d recommend getting an external hard drive. Very good for backups that don’t eat up your laptop memory, and for storing stuff that you aren’t apt to need from one year to the next but still want to keep. I can’t remember how large mine is . . . 100 gigs?
You might want to retrieve any data you want to keep from those floppies. Your next generation of laptop may not only not be able to read them, but won’t even have a drive for them! I wrote an article about Brother Blue, the storyteller (who I see is going to be leading a workshop at the 2008 Audio Theater Workshop in West Plains MO in a couple weeks, along with your Portland colleagues Sam Mowry and Cindy McGean) for a tribute anthology in 1999, and I haven’t been able to open my draft electronic copy from the floppy I stored it on in years. (I’ve had three different laptops since.)
Yep. We’ve got an external harddrive. Alas, it would not let me backup last night.
For floppy disks, I have an external floppy drive.
I second the external. I got one for Yule and I keep most of my music, videos and art on it. I can access it real easy, but those are the things I don’t usually need at the drop of a hat.