What size HD is in your main machine?

[Tiberian Fiend]

Two 750 GB WD Caviar Black drives in a RAID 0 array, which is then split with about 1.2 TB for Win7 and 300 GB for WinXP.

 

[Agent Orange]

Main systems been dead for a while (new motherboard loves to run at some stupidly slow speed taking OS installs 2-3 hours to fail before I try again then get tired of trying).. but dunno I have a few several TB drives that are full laying around waiting to get reconnected.

Been meaning to do a raid-5 2 or 3TB setup but need data up first then I'll debate the undesirable cost. But that's what I'm using to archive software and also my dvds so the kids don't ruin them after a watch or two.

What's the mobo and CPU? Also, what kind of RAM and how much?

 

[Mr.Amiga500]

Laptops or desktops, there is a massive difference between being able to complete 200 IOPS vs. 60000 IOPS. On a regular SATA drive, Windows 7 took 6-7 minutes to boot; after migrating to an SSD, it takes 45 seconds. Applications load an order of magnitude faster.

What?? 6-7 minutes to boot? That's insane. Even 45 seconds is painfully slow. I mean - this is almost 2014! My 1987 Amiga 500 fully boots in 15 seconds. I can boot, connect to the internet, check my email and shut down in 45 seconds.

My new Mac with SSD can finally match the 15 second boot up time. That's my new minimum tolerable boot time: 15 second startup, 2 second shutdown.

 

[Ole Juul]

What?? 6-7 minutes to boot? That's insane. Even 45 seconds is painfully slow. I mean - this is almost 2014! My 1987 Amiga 500 fully boots in 15 seconds. I can boot, connect to the internet, check my email and shut down in 45 seconds.

My new Mac with SSD can finally match the 15 second boot up time. That's my new minimum tolerable boot time: 15 second startup, 2 second shutdown.

How many power failures do you get? That's the only time I do a reboot unless I'm doing some configuration where I can't restart a service otherwise. That said, "booting" does not have an obvious definition. Loading 50 web pages and miscellaneous web services could easily be part of what has to happen until the computer is ready for you to use - which is what I call "booted". You could also call getting to the point where you are ready to start a program "booting", but that doesn't count in my books. I've seen machines take 5 minutes to get even to that point though, notably old MS-Windows boxes, but I don't think that's insane. I think that's hilarious.

Anyway, does read speed of the main drive really contribute much to "getting to ready"? I would have thought it would be processor speed, and as mentioned above, possibly network speed. Of course if your main drive is audio cassette, then I take that back.

 

[Mr.Amiga500]

I shut down every time I'm finished using the computer. I've noticed that even with the latest computers running the latest operating systems, things still get corrupted/screwed up if you don't occasionally reboot. It's unbelievable, but true. (just yesterday I was having weird graphical corruption that didn't go away until I rebooted)

That's why I want the fastest possible boot times.

 

[Andrew T.]

My main desktop computer was outfitted with a 10GB hard drive. Last year I added a 30GB drive I had lying around, for a total of 40GB.

And if I didn't work with digital photos and music, I wouldn't need more than a tenth of that space.

 

[Shadow Lord]

My main desktop computer was outfitted with a 10GB hard drive. Last year I added a 30GB drive I had lying around, for a total of 40GB.

And if I didn't work with digital photos and music, I wouldn't need more than a tenth of that space.

What OS and processor are you running? It seems to me that the OP should have asked those questions as well. HDD size by itself is not really an indicator of things.

For example 40 GB was gargantuan in the DOS/Win3.x era, average in the Win2K/XP era, and below average these days specially when a 1TB drive could be had for $50 or 128GB SSD for about the same price.

 

[Unknown_K]

I asked about your main work machine, not the vintage tuff you play around with. My main rig isn't even the newest in the house (Opteron 180 socket 939) but I use it for email, web use, download storage, etc. I have better machines for Netflix, servers, gaming.

Digital photos and videos take up quite a bit of space driving normal PC users to get bigger HDs, just like the web/flash/HD video made the casual computer user upgrade their hardware (and made gamers mostly jump to consoles).

 

[Shadow Lord]

I asked about your main work machine, not the vintage tuff you play around with. My main rig isn't even the newest in the house (Opteron 180 socket 939) but I use it for email, web use, download storage, etc. I have better machines for Netflix, servers, gaming.

Yes, but even if that is Andrew T's main machine it would be more informative to know in general what his main machine is. Know HDD sizes alone is not really indicative of the whole picture as I imagine some people have pretty "old" (by computer standards) HW as their main machine based on these HDD sizes.

 

[Unknown_K]

Sure I wouldn't mind knowing what hardware and OS they use, but I started this thread after contemplating how much space I needed on my main machine and was wondering what the norm was around here. I used to get by with 80GB drives a few years back until I started storing 720P encoded TV shows on my machine for later viewing (1GB+ for 42 minutes). One of the reasons I got a bunch of LTO drives and tape was to store my favorite shows. While drivers and PDF files have grown in size over the years it is video that takes up the most space these days. If I didn't use this machine for short term storage (the 4TB hd in the lab is for longer term storage) I could get by with 200GB drives like I had.

 

[High_Treason]

Hmm, this makes a change, looks like I'm on the bigger end of the scale, specs nobody cares about;

• Intel Pentium D 2.80GHz (ES - QKDH?)
• 4GB DDR2-667 (800MHz, board doesn't go this fast)
• nVidia GTX 460 1GB
• Windows XP Pro SP3 and Windows 7 Ultimate x64, originally ran Whistler
• SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum
• Intensity Pro
• Liquid cooled

The hard drives are elaborate, need a list of their own;

• 4x1TB Samsung SATA-II Drives
• 2x2TB WD Caviar Black Drives in RAID0 for capturing video (Uncompressed, 10-Bit 720p60 usually - 1GB per ~30sec)
• 2x250GB WD Caviar IDE drives, a surviving relic of the days of having 12x250GB drives were installed when it was new.

It'll be 9 next year, but hell, it's done 1080i, Crysis 2 DX11 and quite a lot of other stuff, had a good run but it'll soon be time to replace it with a Xeon E3 1270v3 based machine if I could only find an adequate case... Oh, and I have to buy a mixer, bunch of converter boxes and all manner of things to do what I could do with this machine from day 1 thanks to the "improvements" in Windows 7, Win 7 is only installed on this machine so I could learn how to use it (with Classic Shell installed though) - bloody useless OS, never liked XP either, seems they remove more functionality with every version, even simple things like the browse for folder window not remembering the last directory you used annoy me to no end in Windows 7.

Bit of trivia, I got the CPU and mobo ahead of release through a connection I had at that time, no PSU was yet large enough to power the machine so I designed my own and had it built by a small company - if you ever wondered why linear power supplies aren't used in the PC/Workstation world, there are a million good reasons for it, I can assure you. Oh, my CPU doesn't have full SSE3 support either, I guess Intel hadn't fully implemented it by this time.

I actually have a Core2 Doodoo based machine that I use for streaming to Twitch.TV but it's motherboard is RM OEM junk and I always found the Core2 slower with video editing somehow.

 

[Andrew T.]

What OS and processor are you running?

My main machine to this day is a Pentium III with Windows 95. As it happens, my only newer computer is a Celeron laptop with less capacity. (20GB, to be precise.)

 

[Caluser2000]

I like it. Kinda puts things in perspective. This XP P4 something Asire Apire box I use every day runs VMs, browsers yadda yadda fine with the drive size I mentioned. Only 512megs of ram too. Was hoping it would've died a horrible death well before now. Oh well here's hoping.

 

[Shadow Lord]

My main machine to this day is a Pentium III with Windows 95. As it happens, my only newer computer is a Celeron laptop with less capacity. (20GB, to be precise.)

Sort of what I expected given the drive sizes. I mean the machine is not capable of handling 720P video well, it is not a power house of gaming, and probably can not do everything on the internet but it works superbly well with the correct time period SW (Win95, Office 95, etc.) and will get you through 99% of your day to day computer needs (word processing, email, web browsing, etc.). So why have more then 40-60GB of HDD space? My Win95 machine had a 1gig SCSI HDD and it worked just fine.

 

[creepingnet]

My main box, a Pentium D 3.4GHz I tossed together out of new and used parts in 2008, and running Windows 7 64-bit, has a 1TB boot drive split into 2 partitions of 500GB each.

My drive setup in that beast is insane
IDE - 80GB WD - used for archival/backup purposes
SATA
0 = 1TB 3.5" Seagate split into 2 500GB Partitions
1 = 160GB 3.5" WD split into a ton of partitions, was the drive I used when I built the computer back in 2008
2 = 160GB 2.5" Toshiba - used for graphics, and documents
3 = 80GB 2.5" Toshiba - used for my music recordings and video archival

Most of my computers have ridiculously huge drives for the main drive....I stow away so much stuff and lately have been moving to using virtualized CD-ROM stuff for even my old boxes to save wear on my optical media.

486 = 8GB Seagate, and I have an 80...that's right EIGHTY Gigabyte drive getting prepped for it
286 = 540MB Seagate, put everything on it that'll run on a 286, and still have over 200MB left
Tandy 1000 = 540MB Seagate, same exact drive as the 286 has, except this one has over 400MB left over ATM

 

[k2x4b524[]

My main machine has a 3tb Seagate Barracude as its primary drive, split simply into 2.2tb and 800gb because I use BIOS and not UEFI. The 2.2 is my main partition, the 800gb left over is my data storage.
It's second hard drive is a 250gb WD Blue. This drive is split into my page file partition which maxes at 12gb, and the rest is where I store my laptop backup.

I have a 750gb SSHD from my laptop, that I pulled when I installed my 64gb msata ssd *with adapter as the M400 doesn't natively support msata*. the SSHD will soon be taking place of the 250 as my games drive and page file partition.

My old 1.5 Seagate barracuda is currently homeless. It's going into a gateway that I am putting together for my online university experiences.

All drives are sata 2 and 3 and are in perfect shape.

 

[deathshadow]

I'm booting off a 256 gig SSD, but the system has 12tb of HDD's in it. The SSD is strictly for read mostly-boot, given that repeated write-wise they have the reliability of a 1987 Yugo GV.

I just gave myself an early Christmas present with a system rebuild -- new mobo, vid and some drives... so now it's:

i7 4770k
ASRock Fatal1ty Z87 Motherboard (3x SLI capable)
16 gigs (2x8) G'Skill Ares DDR3 2400
8 gigs (2x4) G'Skill Sniper DDR3 2400 (from old build)
Gigabyte Windforce GTX 780 OC 3 gig
256 gig SandDisk Ultra Plus SSD
2x 4tb Seagate
2x 2tb Hitachi (from old build)
Blu-ray Burner
Thermaltake TR2 950 Watt "gold" rated PSU (from old build)
Thermaltake Element G case (from old build)
Phanteks PH-TC14PE CPU cooler

Hooked up to the displays I already had:
Potalion 27" 2560x1440 IPS Display
2x Samsung 24" 1920x1200 LCD Displays

...and of course my Model M keyboard and Logitech Trackman Marble+ USB (the old white one!) -- Nothing like a twenty five year old keyboard and decade and a half old mouse on a bleeding edge build.

The previous build was an i7 870, 16 gigs RAM (2x4 1600 and 2x4 2400, running at 1333) and a pair of GTX 260 in SLI.

It's also fun having a Tandy 1000 SX, IIe Platinum and Mac IISE the next desk over from it.

Also putting together a SteamBox with parts from my junk bin -- I know my cup doth runneth over when the parts bin yielded a i7 920, Asus P6T Deluxe Mobo, 9 gigs of RAM, and a 1tb Hibachi. Adding a nVidia GTX 650TI Boost to it, gonna dual boot to Win 7 for gaming. Might even quintuple boot... SteamOS, OSX, Win7, Haiku, and Mint. Lord knows I've got enough sub 1tb SATA drives I could give each their own instead of trying to get OSX and SteamOS to 'play nice' with everything else.

 

[Mr.Amiga500]

...and of course my Model M keyboard and Logitech Trackman Marble+ USB (the old white one!) -- Nothing like a twenty five year old keyboard and decade and a half old mouse on a bleeding edge build.

Yes, a 25 year old keyboard is good... but a 36 year old one is better . I'm using an IBM 3278 terminal keyboard, along with a two decade old CH products trackball - attached to a top of the line, two month old MacBook Pro.

(Why use an external keyboard with a notebook? Modern notebook keyboards suck! It's sad that a 1983 TRS-80 Model 100 (one of the first "notebooks") has a much better keyboard than a late 2013 MacBook Pro.)

 

[Agent Orange]

I'm booting off a 256 gig SSD, but the system has 12tb of HDD's in it. The SSD is strictly for read mostly-boot, given that repeated write-wise they have the reliability of a 1987 Yugo GV.

I just gave myself an early Christmas present with a system rebuild -- new mobo, vid and some drives... so now it's:

i7 4770k
ASRock Fatal1ty Z87 Motherboard (3x SLI capable)
16 gigs (2x8) G'Skill Ares DDR3 2400
8 gigs (2x4) G'Skill Sniper DDR3 2400 (from old build)
Gigabyte Windforce GTX 780 OC 3 gig
256 gig SandDisk Ultra Plus SSD
2x 4tb Seagate
2x 2tb Hitachi (from old build)
Blu-ray Burner
Thermaltake TR2 950 Watt "gold" rated PSU (from old build)
Thermaltake Element G case (from old build)
Phanteks PH-TC14PE CPU cooler

Hooked up to the displays I already had:
Potalion 27" 2560x1440 IPS Display
2x Samsung 24" 1920x1200 LCD Displays

...and of course my Model M keyboard and Logitech Trackman Marble+ USB (the old white one!) -- Nothing like a twenty five year old keyboard and decade and a half old mouse on a bleeding edge build.

The previous build was an i7 870, 16 gigs RAM (2x4 1600 and 2x4 2400, running at 1333) and a pair of GTX 260 in SLI.

It's also fun having a Tandy 1000 SX, IIe Platinum and Mac IISE the next desk over from it.

Also putting together a SteamBox with parts from my junk bin -- I know my cup doth runneth over when the parts bin yielded a i7 920, Asus P6T Deluxe Mobo, 9 gigs of RAM, and a 1tb Hibachi. Adding a nVidia GTX 650TI Boost to it, gonna dual boot to Win 7 for gaming. Might even quintuple boot... SteamOS, OSX, Win7, Haiku, and Mint. Lord knows I've got enough sub 1tb SATA drives I could give each their own instead of trying to get OSX and SteamOS to 'play nice' with everything else.

Good job on that build! Smacks of major bucks. How were your able to sneak all of that by your significant other without getting clobbered? :xmas:

 

[Agent Orange]

Sort of what I expected given the drive sizes. I mean the machine is not capable of handling 720P video well, it is not a power house of gaming, and probably can not do everything on the internet but it works superbly well with the correct time period SW (Win95, Office 95, etc.) and will get you through 99% of your day to day computer needs (word processing, email, web browsing, etc.). So why have more then 40-60GB of HDD space? My Win95 machine had a 1gig SCSI HDD and it worked just fine.

Well,
1. Because you can.
2. They're cheap, plentiful, and readily available.