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Computer drive sizes over the years (lemmynsfw.com)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I just got a new laptop today and when I saw the ssd it blew my mind. Most of my old drives are like the second from left and it's what I think of as a normal drive, buying a standard ssd still feels small to me. But look at that tiny thing to the right! It's the size of a postage stamp!

Assuming I managed to find the right specs (it is a Microscience hh-1050): The monster on the far left is from 1990, holds 40mb, read/write of 0.625mb/s, and weighs almost exactly 2kg. The baby on the far right I got in the mail today, holds 1tb, read/write of 5150mb/s, and weighs about 2.85 grams.

So we're looking at 25,000 times more storage, 8,240 times faster, and 1/700th the weight! And the one on the right is just 1tb, they make one that same model but 2tb. I can barely believe it exists even though I'm literally holding it in my hands.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 week ago (10 children)

Wait, 1tb?

You're leaving impact on the table, I have plenty of 1tb micro SD cards.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 week ago (9 children)

Those drives typically have some pretty dreadful read/write speeds (for a computer). Maybe once SD Express is figured out we'll get fast and good Micro SD cards at a high capacity.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago (7 children)

And they crap out so quickly. I can't even count the number of SD cards I've had to throw in the trash. I don't think I've ever had a 2.5" or 3.5" drive completely crap out on me (though I have had bad SMART data indicative of a dying drive) and I have been running a media server with dozens of TBs for over a decade now.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

This is why for retro computers, I tend to prefer CompactFlash. IDE->CF adapters are cheap, and the cards are much higher quality. They effectively become an SSD that works on old stuff. (Just because I like retro computing stuff doesn't mean I want the whole experience, like waiting for disk heads to move, or worse, tape drives to finish reading. I'm old enough that I remember dealing with it and I don't need to deal with it again.)

Not a lot of call for them otherwise, though. SD cards have gotten increasingly good bandwidth, which means they're good enough for a lot of higher end cameras. CF is getting squeezed out.

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