RAM & HardDisk

[Lakshmipathi]

Hi all,
The size of RAM seems like increasing everyday.
Few years back - 128/256MB RAM considered to be enough.Then 512MB came.
Now a days people talking about 1GB /2GB even 3GB RAM.
Do you think in next few years say 3-4 yrs time, we will have 40GB RAM -just like we had 40GB HDD-for home users?And do you also think Hard Disk will be replaced by Pen Drives?

My PC - 40GB HDD & 256MB RAM
Laptop -80 GB HDD & 512MB RAM

Share your thoughts and also RAM & HDD info...

[ryokimball]

I know that hard drive space has become a great commodity, at least for me. I have 420 GB on my system now, and still whine about not having enough. As for RAM, it's not nearly as bad, but I cannot begin to vent my frustration when (a: ) I found that the MINIMUM RAM for Vista is 1 GB, and (b: ) the blasted thing DARED to call my computer inadequate.
Probably what annoys me the most is that most systems I look at can hold a maximum of four GB of RAM, but one GB is on the border of being considered obsolete.

[bidi]

Do you think in next few years say 3-4 yrs time, we will have 40GB RAM -just like we had 40GB HDD-for home users?

I wouldn't say in 3-4 yrs but definitely someday this will be the norm.

And do you also think Hard Disk will be replaced by Pen Drives?

Yes and no. SSD hard drives are still in their infancy at this point, but I can see them becoming more popular as the technology becomes cheaper... much like anything else.

I, personally, have a single PC now, a Zonbu MiniPC which has 512MB of RAM and a 1.6GHz VIA CPU. It seems to me like the 512MB of RAM is really starting to become a little hard work with. Some software (Firefox) take up a lot of RAM to run smoothly. Before this computer I had a Turion 64 X2 laptop with 1GB of RAM. It ran GNOME quite smoothly.

In the end, it's in the interest of software and hardware vendors to increase computing power. Nowadays anyone can run software like Pro/E or CATIA (3D modeling software) in their home computer, benefiting the software manufacturers because they have a wider public and hardware manufacturer because people need to upgrade to get the functionality.

[coopstah13]

I guess it just depends on how hardware savvy you are.

I've had at least 1gb of ram in any machine i've owned for about 6 years now.
Currently my main system has 2 gb ram, I think its fine, but as stuff gets cheaper may as well get more, more ram is always good for system performance.

Currently I have 1.5 TB in my file server, and my machine has 160gb, which is plenty since I have the fileserver for the extra storage. Disk space is so cheap now, you can get it for 20 cents per gigabyte in some cases.

[Cabhan]

Well, the interesting thing is that 32-bit machines can only support 4GB of RAM (registers can only contain a 32-bit address, 2^32 = 4 GB). Now that 64-bit machines are around and gaining ground, I suspect we will see consumer-level machines using more RAM as it becomes necessary. Of course, even today, most applications don't require even 4 GB of RAM, so the necessity for >4 GB is still some time coming, I suspect.

I agree with bidi in regards to SSD. SSD drives are currently expensive, and not as large as regular HDs. As this changes, their benefits will outweigh their disadvantages, and there will be greater adoption. I suspect that it will be some time before they are popular outside of MP3 players and MacBook Airs .

[ryokimball]

On the topic of solid-state, after IBM's already recent announcement...
IBM's racetrack memory dashing towards commercialization

[bidi]

I suspect that it will be some time before they are popular outside of MP3 players and MacBook Airs .

Well, when I wrote that statement I was thinking about the Asus EEE PC and my Zonbu MiniPC. I bought an extra 8GB CF Card (which I consider equivalent to an SSD drive) for it for $38. That's $10 per GB, quite a bit more than regular, mechanical drives, but as was mentioned, it's going to get to the point where the advantages out weight the disadvantages.

[questio verum]

I can remember the first time I heard someone say they'd just bought two 32MB sticks of ram. I remember thinking "Wow, that's a lot of memory, what would anyone ever need with that much ram?". I think my system at the time had 4MB, and I recall having to use a memory management program in order to play some of my dos games. Funny how standards and perceptions change. My present system has 4GB, and I'll probably double that before year's end. I don't need it, I just want it.

There is a maxim in the industry; more of a tongue-in-cheek murphys law really, that states: "The code shall expand to utilize all available memory & storage space." I think its a windows-specific law.

As for hard drive space, my needs are more modest. I ran everything from an two 80GB drives for a long time. I've got about 30GB worth of old personal files and another 50 or so GB of mp3's. I'm using a 250GB drive at the moment, and though I'm eyeing a replacement setup, I don't really need it. I can envision all the cool things I might do with it though, so I'm talking myself into it

Does anyone else here remember the big fanfare over holographic storage in the early 90's? I'm still waiting patiently for that little leap. I remember intel engineers talking about light-based computing a few years back, which sounded suspiciously like a holographic technology concept.

qv

[darkrose0510]

"The code shall expand to utilize all available memory & storage space."

I think that's exactly what's happening, we all seem to want to 'make the most of' our hardware, so the code grows as more 'features' are added. Eventually the thing is so big and bloated that we need better hardware to cope with the software, then we add more features since we now have the hardware to run them, then we need better hardware for all the features... ad infinitum. It's definitely not just a windows thing either.

My main desktop has a 1TB hard drive and 2GB of RAM. At present it's just got a stock install of Suse 10.3 on it 'coz I've been to sick to do anything sensible with it yet. My little 120Mhz 32MB Laptop out performs it on pretty much everything at the moment.