Grand Rapids, MI | WYDave - 4/12/2009 02:59
Most users will never go to gigabit Ethernet - 100Mbit/sec Ethernet is more than enough for them. Once they get 3 to 5 Mbit/sec broadband, there is nothing that is crying out for a bigger pipe. Bigger disks for users than 1Tbyte? I'll have to wonder why. Unless someone is a photographer and is laying down a lot of raw images, how are most people going to fill a 500GB disk, much less a Tbyte? Sure, Intel/AMD will keep pushing out faster and faster CPU's - but I think now that the emphasis will be on "operations per dissapated watt" rather than on all-out computing power.
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
Dave,
I have to say this is one time I will disagree with you, and I can't believe it is on the subject of computers! Let me tell you that I have 3 computers running in my house, and 100Mbit/sec Ethernet is not fast enough between them. One is a 1.5TB NAS, and I can see a time in a year or so that it will be too small for all the info that I have. You may ask what am I doing with all this equipment? Video. I can serve up a large number of movies, TV shows recorded, etc off the NAS through a video server, running through a matrix switch to any TV in the house. Generally 100Mbits/sec would be fine, but I have been able to exceed it when the NAS is serving/storing multiple videos. Now realize that I am not a common user, but if I can do it now (and its really not that expensive) don't you think it might be mainstream in a few years?
As for the 3 to 5 Mbit/sec broadband being a large enough pipe, I have to disagree even more strongly. In my neighborhood faster pipes than this are being installed everyday. AT&T is running about 20-25Mbit/sec wiht thier U-verse service that allows broadband internet plus four video feeds over the line. I think only one or two of the video feeds can be HDTV. I am also downloading NAIP imagery right now for a few new counties that a new client farms in. My 2Mb/sec connection is taking 45mins to download this. Its not often though that I have to download anything of this size, so I am unlikely to pay more to upgrade to the 6Mb/sec that I could get here anytime soon.
As for CPU's I tend to agree that we have reached a point where they are less important as the speed limiting component of a system. Sitting here I am using less than 2% of any of the four cores that this machine has. I do have to say though that the intern in my office has been pushing an older Pentium D 820 dual core to the max. He has been running 1000 iteration stochastic simulation jobs of a very large spreadsheet analyzing the ACRE program for clients. Takes several minutes to run each. Its not so bad when you get the program dialed in and you only have to run once or twice to do a client analysis. Takes a while though when you are building/troubleshooting/debugging/etc. I have already upgraded the RAM and bidding on Ebay to upgrade the processor. |
Computers, past and present
