Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!apple!vsi1!zorch!xanthian From: xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech Subject: Re: max hd capacity Keywords: hard disk, maxtor Message-ID: <1990Oct5.052818.28621@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> Date: 5 Oct 90 05:28:18 GMT References: <1261@romana.Tymnet.COM> <14805@cbmvax.commodore.com> Organization: SF-Bay Public-Access Unix Lines: 36 limonce@pilot.njin.net (Tom Limoncelli) writes: > steveb@cbmvax.commodore.com (Steve Beats) writes: > >> Let's just say that the Amiga can cope with more hard disk space than >> anyone is ever going to need.....and see which year I`m proven wrong :-) > >A 2gig limit on the size of a partition means a 2gig limit on the size >of any one file. Sure, you might think that that is big, but at >300DPI a 24bit scanner would only have to scan about 4000 square feet >to fill a file that big. > >4000 square feet is pretty large. You could make a map of your >office's floor plan at a scale of 1 inch = 1 inch. Imagine your >entire office complex scanned at 300DPI and in beautiful 24-bit color! Well, that's still a small file space consumer. If you do a wind tunnel or other data grid simulation at 1000 units resolution per edge of the volume, you've only got two bytes per element for data storage. In a typical simulation, you've more like a hundred. Having to manage that as fifty files could be a bit nasty. Similarly if you are trying to do a screen microtoming of a cube on a 1024 x 1024 display, your data storage requirements get big pretty fast. Add a fourth, time dimension to allow animation, and nothing less than a terabyte device comes even close. It was true when I posted it four years ago: the need of the computer user for speed and storage space is unbounded. Give me more, I'll use it; hold quantities constant, things will start to pinch. In the particular case of spinning storage, it is high time for 64 bit addresses; might as well be ready, and we have enough room now to store and process them, so why not build it into OSs before the crunch? Kent, the man from xanth.