Is Hard Drive space that important anymore?

With the continued spread of DVD burners, and other ways to store media, is the size of a Hard Drive really important anymore?

I think so. I'm on my last 1.98GB of my 60GB hard drive on my iBook, and I need more darn it.

does your iBook have a DVD burner though? If it did, you could clear otu a lot of those files

It really depends on the users, I don't think I have ever filled up more than 40gb on my main comp. My laptop only has a 30gb and it has never been a problem.

Nope, no DVD burner, but I do; however, have a 60Gb external and a 250GB external, so I could put the stuff in those drives, but then if I'm away from home, I don't have the files with me. So, it's like one of those deals, where I'm out of the loop if I do, out of it if I don't. I'm even down to 90GB on my 250GB hard drive on my iMac G5.

It really depends on what you do on your computer, but if you work with a lot of music and video or Photoshop it can add up real fast.

For the average, everyday user...it really doesn't matter. I think too many people are hung up on the "bigger is better" mentality, and feel the need to get a huge internal HD. I am only using about 45 out of 60 GB on my eMac and about 15 out of 40 GB on my iBook. I regulary clean out old files and junk that I have little to no need for. I would imagine that not all, but quite a few people could actually free up HD space if they did the same thing. Move those files to a CD/DVD backup and file it away.
So, if in the rare event that you might actually need that movie you haven't watched in two years, or that paper you wrote back in 10th grade, you can pull the backup CD out and put it back on the HD. :black:

I think for older files, such as the paper you wrote in 10th grade and so on, backing up on a cd/dvd would be smart. My mac is in the mail so I will have to use my PC for example, i have used about 60+ GB out of a 200GB hard drive and for me to back that up on dvds is pretty much out of the question. I think for backing up important files and things like that, cd/dvds are no problem but as for backing up entire hard drives or computers for that matter, external hard drives are the way to go. I personally like big hard drives because I put so many programs and things on them that its all right there and I dont have to go sort through dvds and try to find it. Plus, if I have a movie backed up on dvd ide rather transfer it to my hard drive so it runs smoother and my comp doesnt have to wait and read the dvd. I think its all matter of personal opinion.

It all depends on ones use of computer and HD space. Most people who buy computers today would have a hard time filling up an 80 Gig HD.... But then again when I bought a computer with 10Gig HD in the late 90s I thought it would last forever as the previous HD I'd owned was 750 MB. As SW developers figure out how to use more disk space efficiently they do it. In ten years the current 300MB SATA drives will seem quaint. Thus spake the profet!

Yeah, it does still matter. The only reason I make DVD backups of stuff is just for that reason - to make a backup. Most of the stuff that I have on my hdd I want to be able to access anywhere, any time, without having to find the DVD it's on. Considering the fact that I'm a photographer, I have a lot of hdd space devoted to pics. It's way too inconvenient and slow to browse through several DVDs to find the pic I need. My WinXP desktop has a 200gb hdd (90 of which is used), but I'll only be getting the 80gb hdd with my PB, since I can use my massive desktop hdd to back my PB's files up on and still be able to easily browse them.

On my old G4 I usually had 3-4 video editing projects running at a time... 1.4 TB of hardrive space on that machine...... COMPLETELY FULL... And I backed old projects up to DVD regularly to get more space. I was doing alot of multi-camera footage for weeklong conferences at the time... so it added up fast. At the same time I have barely even touched the 40GB hardrive in my iBook.... Because all I use it for is a little Photoshop and email/browsing.

It all depends on what you are using it for.

Size does matter - especially for hi-res digital photos and video - music to a lessor degree.

What I would really like to see - since HD size is just increasing like crazy - is a "safe disk" -- a disk that has a second platter for instant mirroring of your data. The more time and effort I put into creating digital archives the more important it is to not loose them

That's not a bad idea... As long as it didn't effect performance.