2008 forecast: if you build it, they will come.(Hitachi Global Storage Technologies)

What would you store on a one-terabyte hard drive?

Every so often milestones are announced that put into perspective how far we've come and the direction we're heading' they may even give us a peek into the future. The milestone announcement of the first digital camera for instance, reminded us of how much photography has evolved and it put film developers and traditional camera makers on notice that things were about to change. The same could be said for other milestone announcements: the first car, the first organ transplant, the first wireless phone.

On January 4, 2007, an announcement was made that marks another important milestone. Surrounded by the hustle and bustle of visitors attending the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, a group of very dedicated employees from Hitachi Global Storage Technologies announced the first one-terabyte hard drive.

Before you let out a yawn, consider the following: since first being introduced some fifty years ago, the hard drive has had a significant impact on our lives, in a relatively short period of time. Even if you've never owned a computer, this data storage device has changed your life. Without it there would be no ATMs or credit cards; you would have to go to the library's card catalog for your research, and get in line at the travel agent to book a flight, get a hotel reservation or rent a car. Hard drives are the enabling technology behind everything from supermarket scanners to CAT scans and MRI technology. Businesses wouldn't have word processors or spreadsheets and you wouldn't have the quick and inexpensive ability to purchase the clothes you wear, the food you eat or the medicines you take.

So, you may ask, what's a terabyte and why is a one-terabyte hard drive so important?

A terabyte is approximately 1,000 gigabytes or 1 million megabytes. For you and me, it's enough storage capacity to hold a million books or half a million family photos. It's has also been a holy grail milestone of sorts for hard drive engineers who are continually developing new technologies that stretch the limits of what these incredible devices can do.

For the past 25 years or so, the amount of data that can be stored on a hard drive has increased while the cost per megabyte of storage continued to decrease. As a result, these ubiquitous devices, oftentimes working invisibly behind the scenes, have literally changed our day-to-day lives. If you enjoy listening to music on an MP3 player, you owe a bit of gratitude to the advances in hard drive technology that first made them possible. The same is true for video game players, cell phones, GPS systems, video streaming, online music, automobile navigation and maintenance systems, PDAs, laptop computers, digital video recorders, digital cameras, text messaging and e-mail, to name just a very few. As capacity and price improve, new life-changing applications follow. And one thing has been proven again and again' our thirst for quick access to more and more storage is insatiable.