Within 5 years, terabyte hard drives will be common and inexpensive (<$300). Thus, purchasing an additional terabyte of personal storage every year will be feasible for the average computer user. It turns out that filling 1 terabyte is not easy. It is hard to take/view enough pictures, read enough documents, or listen to enough audio in 1 year to fill 1 terabyte. Only video is up to the task of readily filling 1 terabyte in a year. Therefore, we must prepare for the era of profligate users that Vannevar Bush predicted. Users will eventually be able to keep every document they read, every picture they view, all the audio they hear, and a good portion of what they see.

gordon bell is preparing for that day with his MyLifeBits project at MS research, as is the MIT haystack project which drew lots of applause at the W3C conference this year.

We have begun using MyLifeBits, and initial experience is a success. Gordon Bell, our alpha user, has digitized nearly everything possible from his entire life, and will have eliminated all paper (except those legally required) by the time this paper is published.

one question that bloggers get asked a lot; why are you replicating your life online, can be asked of this effort too. the answer, it appears, is rooted in human psychology, and the wish to endure.

Supposing one did keep virtually everything would there be any value to it? Well, there is an existence proof of value. The following exist in abundance: shoe boxes full of photos, photo albums & framed photos, home movies/videos, old bundles of letters, bookshelves and filing cabinets. While many items may be accessed only infrequently (perhaps just a handful of times in a lifetime) they are treasured; given only one thing that could be saved as their house burns down, many people would grab their photo albums or such memorabilia.

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