Upsize, Downsize

T3 Select Opinion for January 2008 EVERYWHERE WE look, the trend seems to say “Upsize me!” The idea of “less is more” now holds favor only with anorexics and nanotechnologists; most everywhere else—say, in the design of SUVs, jumbo jets, burgers, and tennis rackets—bulking up rules the day. Computer technology is an interesting meeting point between upsizing and downsizing. Take the hard drive. As the physical size and shape (what disdainful geeks prefer to call the “form factor”) of the hard drive has gotten smaller, its storage capacity has been conversely and almost exponentially increasing. I remember staring at a hard disk from the 1970s, on exhibit in the window of a computer shop in England: it was as large as a shoebox, held a humongous ten megabytes, and cost the equivalent of something like $10,000. Today you can get 200 times that capacity in a microSD card smaller than a postage stamp. The scientific wizardry that makes such feats possible is indubitably marvelous, and the day will surely come when we’ll find a terabyte in a decodable microdot. I wonder, however, what we need all that extra space for. Or is it the case that more storage space simply creates more needs, real and/or imagined? Why is it that we all felt rich with 100-megabyte hard drives just 15 years ago, and didn’t know what to put in them, beyond all the term papers, resumes, application letters, and unfinished novels we ever wrote? (But then again, 15 years ago, most readers of this mag were probably licking lollipops.) To fast-forward into the present, what do we need a 160-GB iPod for? How many songs are there in the universe, anyway, and more to the point, how many of them do you need or even want to listen to? I’m not against anyone buying all the gigabytes he or she can afford, mind you. I’m a storage and backup freak myself, and as far as I’m concerned you can’t be redundant enough when it comes to critical data. (Of course, it’s my conceit that all my data is critical.) Call it paranoia, but I keep backups in a 250-GB 3.5-inch drive and a 160-GB portable drive. (I know, you can use the iPod for storage—like buying a Lamborghini to carry furniture.) But music? I keep two 1-GB iPod shuffles—one for the bag and one for the car—each capable of storing and playing the same playlist of about 250 choice songs. Size does matter, and maybe some guys do feel heavier between the legs carting all that heavy metal and hip-hop around. But sometimes growing up means wanting less, and learning to choose what you really like could be a sign of upsizing what really counts.