Does Data Take Up Actual Physical Space?

[KansukeKojima 0]

Well does it? Because if it doesn't then basically we can have memory sticks, etc that have unlimited space... like is that why there is space limits? Files need actual pysical room? Anybody know?

[Above The Rest 0]

We can't have memory sticks with unlimited space because the physical memory stick can only hold so much virtual data.

Edited November 15, 2007 by Above The Rest (see edit history)

[Saint_Michael 3]

Well in a way data does in a form of the hard drive, since once you max it out you either delete data or add on a new hard drive to add more data and what not. On the other hand if you referring to actual disk space on a hard drive then it the answer would no, because of the fact that companies are producing the same size hard drives that are packing 500GB-1000GB of space on them. Now look at the last 10-15 years of hard drive technology most hard drives could only hold 500-1000MB of disk space, and so you can see it could be possible that in the next 10-15 years hard drives will be in the 10+TB range and will only cost $200-$300 once they have been well established.

[rayzoredge 2]

I would think (in my opinion anyway) that it doesn't take up actual physical space, but rather CHANGES the spaces that the data occupies on the disk.The traditional hard drive is composed of a set of circular plates coated with a thin layer of magnetic material with a magnetic head that reads and "writes" data onto these plates. The read/write device actually operates closely to the plate, making changes and reading data at a very miniscule scale (back down to the very basic machine code of binary - 1's and 0's).More data would mean more magnetic changes to the platters in the hard drive. If I were to save what I typed here in a text document, the changes to my hard drive would consist of a LOT of 1's and 0's that translate into the ASCII characters (8 binary digits for one character, I believe) that you are seeing right now, all correlated and stored somewhere on the hard drive. (Sometimes this data is scattered about, which is why your hard drive becomes fragmented - which really means that parts of files are scattered everywhere on the hard drive, making access time to the complete file slightly longer than if the file fragments were all together.)The reason why we have space limits is the fact that each grain of data (which holds one binary digit) can only be so small, which we can further "shrink" as technology advances and when we can literally squeeze more room onto a platter within the hard drive. Right now I believe with the advent of nanotechnology and even biotechnology, hard drive capacities can only get bigger with the same amount of space.As for flash memory (USB sticks, SD cards, etc.), the workings are a little different. Data is stored by electrons within the chipset... which confuses me on how my 4GB USB stick survived a laundry wash . The application of voltage is what changes data on flash memory, and each chipset constantly holds a charge that keeps data from being lost. (RAM is essentially memory storage, but it is cleared of all data as soon as you power down the system and it loses electrical current. Technology advances are now utilizing forms of RAM to create super-fast hard drives by constantly providing a source charge.)So in short, technology in miniaturization would be our limiting factor on capacity when it comes to expanding it.

Edited November 15, 2007 by rayzoredge (see edit history)

[KansukeKojima 0]

Thanks... I've been wondering about this for awhile now for really no reason...thanks... your explanations seem to make sense..