I'm getting confused by the quoting, I would second the case that salvage recommended...and unless your backing up the internet, I don't see a point in 9 2TB harddisks... not unless your planning on running a dedicated RAID card or something... which will cost about 200 bucks on its own on the low end.
for your information, (9TB would not be enough for me, but for sake of argument), 9TB for me would mean 4.5TB of data with one full backup of everything.
Now, currently with all my hard drives and externals, I have OVER 4TB OF SPACE USED UP, WITH NOT A SINGLE BACKED UP FILE, AND AM ACHING FOR MORE SPACE, not to mention taking a BIG RISK by not having ANYTHING backed up. This means even with 9TB OF HARD DRIVES, I would only have 500GB left for storage!!!!! That's because for security I would like to have at least ONE FULL BACKUP of EVERYTHING.
IDEALLY I NEED A 20TB SYSTEM TO LAST ME THE NEXT COUPLE OF YEARS. That's up to 10TB of space with one full backup of everything and zero duplicate files.
This is because between video files, graphics files, duplicates and revisions of graphics files, applications, web server backups between 20 to 100 clients at any one time, audio files, and other data, it takes up a MASSIVE AMOUNT OF SPACE!!!
My primary largest storage needs, in this order:
* Applications/OS
* Graphics/Web Files/Backups
* Video Files
* Audio Files
* Text Files
Not to mention that more than 1 FULL TB of data just for my movies and television shows. And for that alone I could easily eat up 2 or 3 TB of data in the space of a couple years. And that's only with SMALL (low-resolution) video files, most between only 200MB and 700MB. If I wanted to get/rip blu-ray copies of my movies, it could easily eat up 20 to 100 TIMES that amount. Needless to say, 25 to 50GB movie files, which could easily take up about 25TB of space, will never happen - at least not in the near future.
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In conclusion, 10 x 2TB Hard Drives would be extremely practical for me, and I would gobble up every byte! (Pun intended!!! XD)
If I can get deals on hard drives, I could get as low as an average of $80 each 2TB hard drive. The probable thing I would do, is:
1. Buy 2 x 2TB HDD @ average $80 each if I search on craigslist and get lucky.
2. Insert my 3TB HDD from my external.
3. Now that I have 5TB, I could buy another couple 2TB HDD over the next few months.
4. Once I run out of space, which I might be able to stretch to another year, the price on HDD will have dropped and I could probably get 3TB or 4TB HDD for the same price as a 2TB this year.
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Moreover the INTERNET has more than 1 QUADRILLION GIGABYTES OF DATA, and is growing exponentially every day. For perspective, that is 1 TRILLION TERABYTES - which would be equivalent to 500 BILLION 2TB HARD DRIVES.
For further perspective (just doing this math now): 1 2TB Hard Drive is about 3 7/8” in length. 3.875 x 500 Billion = 1,937,500,000,000" = 30,579,230 miles
* This means if you lined up 2TB HARD DRIVES side by side it would reach from Earth to the moon AND BACK exactly 64 TIMES!!!
* If you placed the 2TB Hard Drives side-by-side they would WRAP AROUND THE EARTH 1,228 TIMES!!!
* It's about 37 million miles to Mars, so this means that the hard drives side-by-side would just about reach MARS!!!
* The cost to buy enough 2TB Hard Drives to fit THE ENTIRE INTERNET (@ $100 each), would cost $50 TRILLION DOLLARS!!!!
* There is only an estimated 6 to 8 trillion dollars IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!!! This means that to get enough money to buy enough hard drives to get the entire internet NOT INCLUDING THE OTHER HARDWARE NEEDED TO RUN THEM, it would take ALL THE MONEY OF EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THE ENTIRE WORLD FOR SEVEN FULL YEARS to pay for it!!!
* So to say "you could fit the entire internet", IS THE MOST COMPLETELY PREPOSTEROUS THING ANYONE COULD EVER SAY!!!!