Data-hungry desktops will have petabytes and exabytes to eat

Memory storage is the next big technology bottleneck. I have been aware of this for some time, but it became very clear while I was shopping (and saving) for a new digital camera, one that creates 14-megabyte files every time I snap a picture.

At that rate, you can only store the equivalent of two 36-exposure rolls of film per gigabyte of storage space. That means on a typical 80GB hard drive, you can only store the equivalent of 160rolls of photos or about two years' worth of shooting.

I have a video camera that creates even bigger files. It chews up 2GB to 4GB every time I make a small film.

It was obvious that I needed a plan. My first step was to get a Maxtor OneTouch III one terabyte RAID drive. A terabyte is roughly the equivalent of two thousand rolls of 36-exposure film or 25years' worth of my-style shooting. The RAID designation allows multiple drives to be treated as one, for space and performance (RAID-0), or less space and more safety (RAID-1).

The Maxtor OneTouch is not just a huge drive, it is also fast. It comes with ports for USB 2, FireWire 400 and, my favourite, FireWire 800, which is twice as fast as the others. It also comes with a version of Retrospect for backup and a file synchronisation application.

It has a button on the front side from which it gets its name, OneTouch. Press the button and it starts syncing or backing up the drives or servers of your choice, whether directly connected or on your network. And if you prefer, the drives you copy can be start-up drives, should anything happen to your original.