Will we need more storage in the future?

[DustinV]

Currently, people don't use more than 1 terabyte usually. Up to 5 terabytes if you save a lot of videos or pictures etc.

So in the future, when things become more demanding, will we need 200 terabytes, 500 terabytes etc.?
Or will they learn how to make things take up less storage space?

 

[Sensor]

At certain point storage will probably grow to such high numbers.
Need for inventing new methods to limit those will be purely dependent on cost of space at the time.

HOWEVER

This doesnt mean that we will end up with games/movies/data growing much bigger than it is right now because we will still need to be able to for example process it. Storage is dependent on so many different areas and right now its not the bottleneck.

Data usually expand as much as it can without seeing much resistance. So if you have a possibility to download, process and use files that are for example 100 terabytes then data will follow and such files/movies/games will find their way into the market.

Life example :
Old games size under 1GB everything was compressed, starting with installer and ending up with graphics. Engine was about 500 MB and media around 600 MB
Current games size above 40 GB .. no compression used. Cheaper to develop, look better but the engine alone without graphics is still about 600 MB but the media are not compressed and often have copies of themselves for different resolutions (since its easier this way) and they take rest of the space.

 

[ezrafuller]

I think that as data becomes more accessible (more data on the internet along with more people using it) we will need to be able to store more. Additionally, as more people get into the computer programming field more applications will be available and people will have a wider variety of programs on their computer. I don't necessarily think that we will see consumer available 200 terabyte drives any time soon, but maybe when Quantum computers become more prevalent we will need more space, but that's just a guess. Lastly, maybe a breakthrough in storage will come and we will need to use less data.

 

[Sensor]

I think that as data becomes more accessible (more data on the internet along with more people using it) we will need to be able to store more.

I dont think that this is the question. Its about size of drives themselves. Right now we just add more drives that have specific capacity and it will be like that in the future. The question here is what size of drives will be at our houses in the future.

Additionally, as more people get into the computer programming field more applications will be available and people will have a wider variety of programs on their computer.

Current trend shows that IT field (including programming) is not so popular like 10 years ago. Amount of people finishing with degree in the field went down dramatically. When it comes to programs on the computer. Just because there is more programs on the market doesnt mean people will have 10 different programs to do the same thing. Majority of people usually dont need many different kinds of programs since they dont use computer for anything else than basic tasks. I dont think it will change in the future.

I don't necessarily think that we will see consumer available 200 terabyte drives any time soon, but maybe when Quantum computers become more prevalent we will need more space

Once again this is not true. Quantum computers will not replace a classical computers we have. Simply because you need to have a classical computer to interact with Quantum one not to mention they are not very much faster because of overhead. Only in specific scenarios quantum computing has any merit.