Widespread video consumption will bring the next billion within five years
It’s a proud day for Seagate.
Today the company announced it has shipped its one billionth disk drive. There’s a fun video stroll through the 29 years of Seagate’s existence on the website. I was in high school for drive #1- it seems like just yesterday!
More amazing: the 2 billionth drive will ship within 5 years. How can that be, given how capacious drives are today?
One word: video. There are several interlocking trends driving the sustained explosion in content needing to be stored in our world, but video rises above all else in explaining it. I posted on this not too long ago.
A stunning example: Panasonic demonstrated a 150″ flat panel TV at CES in January. The video was recorded in UHDV (ultra high definition video) format at 4320p. A single movie in EHDV in MPEG2 takes up 720GB of hard drive space! The larger the screen, the more pixels are needed to make video look “Hi Def”. HD standards will continue to increase because screens continue to grow in size.
In a few very short years we’ll reminisce, “Remember when the largest disk drive held 1 TB? That’s just enough for one video!”
Then there’s the widespread adoption of video on hand-held phones and PMPs. In that case it’s lower resolution (but still huge files comared to text or voice) with a potential audience of billions.
ST506) Stats:
- Capacity: 5 MB (enough for one MP3 song)
- Weight: 5 pounds
- Form Factor: 5.25″
- Price: $1500
OK, time to hear from you. Where do you watch video? Are you “Old School” with Standard Definition TV, are you watching shows on your phone, or somewhere in between?
[…] Storage Effect put an intriguing blog post on Seagate disk drives: over 1 billion servedHere’s a quick excerpt […]
Only high def for me. I abandoned some shows since they were not HD in the early days. The only exception to my rule is M*A*S*H.
Hey Pete!
Congratulations to Seagate for the milestone!
[…] drive set the standard for microcomputers, eventually finding its way into enterprise systems, and catapulting Seagate to its current position of disk drive leadership. Higher-capacity derivatives of the ST-506 were […]