How Much Space Do You Need?

With 1.5TB drives on the market, many users actually wonder how much space do I need? With more and more HD content streaming from home camcorders, file sizes getting larger and holding more fun stuff, and computer games being longer and having higher resolution images, things are getting bigger. But does that mean you're in the market for a new hard drive? Let's find out.

First, let's look at file sizes.

There are 1,000KB in 1MB.
There are 1,000MB in 1GB.
There are 1,000GB in 1TB.

Your basic MP3 song is about 3MB (~1MB per minute).
Your basic video computer game is about 4GB (made in the last year).
A standard-quality, medium-resolution full length film is about 1GB.

If you're on a laptop, don't expect to find anything more than 250GB and still be reasonably priced. Laptops aren't desktops, and can't hold such a high-capacity hard drive yet at a "consumer-friendly" pricetag. Also keep in mind that most laptop drives spin at different speeds. Depending on how much you pay, you can get a 5,400 RPM (Rotations Per Minute) drive, or a standard 7,200 RPM drive- most likely what you're using now if you're on a desktop.

Now if you're on a desktop, you have a much more broad choice of drives. Anything from 160GB all the way up to 1,500GB (AKA 1.5TB) is available for you to choose from. Now unless you're running a fileserver on that computer, or storing hours and hours of high-resolution HD content, as well as libraries of RAW camera shots from your DSLR, I highly doubt you'll be needing anything larger than 500GB. Day-to-day "check-emails-and-update-Facebook" users will be happy with a little 160GB drive or under.

I know for me, my Mac Pro shipped with a 250GB drive, which certainly wasn't enough since I do video editing and store RAW photo shots, as well as play some computer games. So I chunked $69 at a new 500GB drive, and I'm more than happy. I use Windows on the 250GB drive, installed The Orange Box, as well as other titles like FlatOut 2, and I haven't even filled her to a quarter. My Mac OS X filesystem is sitting on the 500GB drive, and I'm just now hitting halfway (that's the one with video footage, pictures, my iTunes library, and tons of iWeb and GarageBand stuff).

So if you're getting a new computer, consider how much space you really need. Always remember that you can upgrade your desktop's hard drive with just a simple screwdriver. However, laptop users need to be thinking ahead and take into account what's going to be stored. ;-)