Disk space

I thought I'd just share how amazed I am at the cost of hard disks these days. Rather, I should say I'm surprised at the lack of a cost. For a hard disk over about 100 GB, you now pay less than $1 per gigabyte. I think it will call into question certain assumptions about the viability of hard disks as a backup medium.

Despite this amazing breakthrough, the 160 GB disk I purchased unfortunately can't be used to its maximum capacity with my ancient (2001) motherboard. This is due to the 28-bit limitation on physical addressing in the old ATA standard. Luckily a new standard has come out in the past year, but I'm yet to try the necessary BIOS and Windows upgrade.

In a related matter, look out for a post coming soon on sustainable storage of digital information. You might want to syndicate this page.

Portrait of Matt Ryall

About Matt

I’m a technology nerd, husband and father of four, living in beautiful Sydney, Australia.

My passion is building technology products that make the world a better place. In 2021, I started Mawson Rovers to develop robotics and software for space exploration. Prior to this, I led product teams at Atlassian to create collaboration tools for 15 years.

I'm also a startup advisor and investor, with an interest in advancing the Australian space industry. You can read more about my work on my LinkedIn profile.

blog@mattryall.net