2010: the 5TB 3.5in HDD cometh



Source and more:
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/07/04 ... _hdd_2010/

I think I read this on Engadget, I was interested to know the brain has a capacity of 10TB.

Oh god. Ten years from now we will all be dumping our brains to 100TB hard drives.

On a side note, I have yet to fill up a 250GB hard drive. However, these would most likely be used for servers when they are released.

Filling up a 250GB drive is all too easy

The brain doesn't have 10TB. Nobody knows the capacity of the brain. If it has a capacity at all its going to be in the Petabyte range at the very least.

?

Its bull crap. Your brain can store way more information than 10TB. Think about it. You can remember events from your whole life practically. OK some early life memories maybe not but they are still in your sub-conscious. Think of the movies you've seen, the "images" you can remember, events you've been to, sounds you have heard, things you have learned in school. Are you seriously saying that only comes to 10TB? I don't think so.

Nobody knows how big the brain is. Its one huge and infinitely complex relational database that is probably so complex it can never be recreated.

Nothing is certain. Even scientific discoveries are only best guesses...

I really agree with you there. Our brains can store tons of images, pictures, videos, memories. A computer hard drive can never reach the amount of storage in our brains.
Only google can do that...

Technically speaking, you can't accurately equate your brain, which is a giant organ full of fluid nerves and synapses, to a storage device. Noone knows the capacity of the brain because the brain has no set limits. The more you stimulate your brain, the more it grows, and the better it works. Imagine it. You brain is a complex piece of equipment. It's the only form of processing and storage that becomes more efficient over time. Not saying that there isn't a limit to how much your brain can hold, but one things for sure: the amount of stimulation and use your brain gets, the better it becomes.

2010: Odyssey Five trillion

Our brains are similar to an analogue medium in that they are pretty terrible at accurate data reproduction but theoretically have a enormous capacity given the right equipment.

It's just Hitachi's technique of getting some computer noobs to buy two hard drives:

As you can see, you can get the average computer noob to buy two of them by saying that two of them hold the brain. That's all this claim is.

theorically one should able to remember everything that had happened in their life.
But data is in a mess that becomes very hard to find, thus trying to remember what happen on your first birthday is very unlikely.
There are people who can remember a thousand page book word by word from beginning to end or pi (3.1415926535) to a million digit.
Maybe in the near future, someone will create an electronical organizer for the brain.

btw, 10TB isn't alot of sapce when the come up with Windows 8 on BD and quad layer super HD video.
30+GB for a two hour dvd movie amazes me, like that's alot of space.
I could fill a TB in 2 weeks.

Well, the most important thing to remember is that the brain doesn't store static information in a binary form. You can't just core-dump a brain onto a harddrive. So a brain storing 10TB is 100% pure sensational-for-the-tabloids BS.

We barely scratched the surface on how the brain works, less on what its capabilities is. We have not even begun to make use of the full capacity of our brain, so how can one say that it can store xxx data? We do use all of our brain (the "10%" (or so) myth is just an misinterpretation of the fact that we do use ALL of our brain, but not at the highest efficiency)*. The brain works more like a relational database (for those of you that knows how such work) where experiences, images, smells etc is stored in a chemical fashion. When we watch a wide spread meadow with flowers we may actually SENSE the smell of the flowers. Or when you see that favorite drink in front of you you feel you can already taste it etc. It's all different part of your brain interacting, mixing memories into making a complete memory of what you currently need to remember. And we currently speculate that the more efficient the neurons in the brain interact with other neurons make our memory better. So it's more of how many other neurons a braincell can interact with rather than how much they "store".

If your brain was a binary core dump harddrive then you would be able to remember everything in exact detail, every time. Since the brain would only need then to access that specific data and retrieve it, just like a computer harddrive. 0110 will always be 0110 when read. Not with the brain.

So any claims of knowing how much a brain stores is pure BS.

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*For those of you that believe that we use x % of our brain... think about this:

If we really used only about 10% of our brain, then why is it so big? The average human brain weighs around 1400 grams, why all this dead weight then? Why not simply remove all the "unused" sections? If we did that we would end up at approximately 140g brain left. That's the average weight of a sheep's brain...

The brain is by far the organ in the human body that consumes the most energy. So if we remove 90% of it the body would need a lot less energy to run itself... So why all this waste? Why did the brain even GROW during our development from primal apes? Since even an ape has a larger brain than a sheep there would be plenty of space to develop, without physically growing any parts of the brain. There is a reason why brain surgeons has to carefully map out the brain before starting an operation. We use ALL of our brain, some areas more than others depending on what we do.

So the common misconception that we use x % is wrong, we may use x % of our potential to use the brain but that's also pure speculation and an entire different meaning than "x% usage", since we don't know really how the brain stores its information or how it processes them into usable data, less what it's really capable to. Nature is a wonderful thing and it will always find methods to develop things as efficiently as needed. The most efficient way for us would be to fly, live on pure solar energy and fly around in the universe. But it's not needed at the moment, so we have not come that far in our development yet.

Sorry for the long rant, but it is a very interesting topic for me, and some things just needs to be cleared out... 10TB brain... yeah... sure... I think that guy sipped too many Tai Mai:s at work while watching the movie Johnny Mnemonic... (where in the movie the brain stored only 80-160GB (!) by deleting part of his childhood memories). If he believed that then my server here stores enough data to replace a classroom of brains.

The brain is not an absolute harddrive storage device. Thus we can't store xGB/TB/PB. Period.

I agree with everything except for.....

"So why all this waste? Why did the brain even GROW during our development from primal apes? Since even an ape has a larger brain than a sheep there would be plenty of space to develop, without physically growing any parts of the brain."


I didn't come from no ape! Personally, I believe only God can create a device so intricate and complex.

Secondly, our brain has a "failsafe" mechanism that ensures we can handle most situations and interactions in our life. Think about this: when we have very bad chidhood experiences or something terrible happens, we tend to "block it out" over time....now this may not be true for all of us, but it is certainly the common consensus when pertaining to what memories we keep, which ones we alter, and which ones we discard. If we could remember everything in great detail (especially those bad memories), we would not be able to handle it. Good experiences seem to linger and even the slightest familiar smell, touch, taste, sight or releative thought can resurrect those memories in in great detail. To sum it up, your brain tends to hold onto good memories better than bad.

I respect that even if I don't believe it myself, didn't mean any offense.




That is true, which is why the brain isn't a harddrive. Even if I believe the brain stores much more than we can actually recall (as you said, a smell, touch etc can trigger memories you thought you forgot) the brain chooses to keep the most "important" data on the surface, burying the rest until it's needed. And bad memories that triggers psychological trauma are buried deeper to prevent further damage to the brain. If a computer worked the same way it would actually encapsulate, store and encrypt viruses and malware automatically. Sure would be useful tho.

No offense taken