Can you please tell me what percentage of the data you store is generated by yourself (or family) ? I mean not downloaded or copied. For example if you have a 500 Giga disk what percentage of it has personal stuff you created yourself and did not download or copy to someone else ? Things you created, documents, photos, videos etc…
I am trying to understand how much data could be duplicated overall. The downloaded or copied data is duplicated so it gives me an idea.
For example when I look at my total used storage (3 TBs) 95% is filled with downloaded content. So I at most generated only 5% of my total storage capacity. That downloaded content is in probably in many other computers elsewhere, massively duplicated since it was also downloaded by others. I have like 100 Gigas in photos and videos I made though but that’s a minor (3.3%) part of the 3TBs used.
So I though I’d make a poll and ask each computer user that minds to answer what % of their stored capacity is user generated. You can simply comment if you want. Like that I can have an idea of how much data is subject to duplication. That helps me understand more about Western Digital, one of my investments.
To finalize, a funny comment from a storage expert:
“Let’s face it, we’re not changing the world. We’re building a product that helps people buy more crap – and watch porn.”
Bill Watkins, Seagate’s Ex – CEO (source: Western Digital: Yet some some more thoughts)
Cheers!
jrv
Post Data: To understand how data could be released and massively de-duplicated.
Imagine you have lots of movies (or music), for example if 80% of all your storage are movies. But then comes a service where you could access the movies you have, in better quality, anytime, for basically no cost or very low. For example you can watch the Godfather anytime from anywhere.
Then the need to download it or copy it is gone for lots of people. 80% of your storage can be released (you can see the same movies/music almost free or free if you can stand 1 minute of publicity or commercial break, and better quality you had, top quality, any language, directors-cut version etc…). If everybody suddenly did the same a lot of storage capacity would be released. Most would watch the Godfather from the same few sources instead of having it duplicated millions of PCs/notebooks/external drives).
About jrv
I was born in Spain and lived in France, Chile, USA and Belgium. Currently I am trying to settle down in Brasil. I am "retired", even though now I dedicate more hours "working" for my investments than I ever worked in the real labor market where I used to work in IT and Banking. I am a family man, I have a lovely wife, Bieke, 3 sons and one step daughter. I have humble tastes, I like to stay home and read about companies and investments.
I started investing at 25 before the internet bubble exploded. I did not know much about investing and liked technical analysis so my results were pretty bad. Fortunately I did not have much to lose. Some years later in 2006 bored of doing only real state investments and with quite a lot of money saved I opened an account in a cheap and excellent online broker and started again. This time I did not want to commit the same mistake, so I decided to follow a model. I heard that Warren Buffett was the best at making money via stocks so I started by reading a lot about him, all of his shareholders letters and several of the books that he recommended. I learned a lot, started applying his investing principles and reading a lot of 10K's. Digested news from lots of different sources. Basically I started buying very good and cheap companies and holding them for ever if possible and if nothing changed fundamentally. When the housing crisis started I was more than 75% cash. At that time I identified good companies at incredibly cheap prices so I invested most of my savings in stocks. In less than I year I doubled. By the second semester of 2009 I turned my software company into an investment vehicle and dedicated myself full time to it. My wife and I decided to change our lifestyle and moved from Belgium to the beach in Brazil, north east coast (see pictures here www.kuchita.com). The goal was to keep fixed costs low in order to be able to live with a minimum 6-8% yearly return but specially to move away from the inhuman life of civilization and to have finally some peace and sunny weather to concentrate better on investing. Now I can think and study about companies 60 hours a week and I am doing great. I can finally do what I want full time and can proudly say that I have never been so happy, specially also with my just born 4th son, my other great kids and my sweet wife who supports me fully while I study most of the day and patiently wait for the opportunity to make a swing !
You can learn a bit more about my portfolio by viewing it at www.kuchita.com/view/sumo.php or you may learn more about me and my family by following the link "Author's site" from the menu above.
Hey J,
That is an interesting question. For myself, I take a lot of photos, so I make 1/3 and the rest is movies and software downloads 2/3rds.
Cheers!
These are actually wonderful ideas in regarding blogging. You have touched some pleasant factors here.
Any way keep up wrinting.
I take a lot of pictures too. I have around 40 GB of that. Apart from that, everything else is downloaded. So, I would say 1/5 generated by me.