4 ms·

4GB should be nothing. It's crazy to me how consumer computer storage has stalled out at the 2010 level for so long. And if anything we're going backwards now

4GB should be nothing. It's crazy to me how consumer computer storage has stalled out at the 2010 level for so long. And if anything we're going backwards now in 2026. We should be having many TBs in our home computers and laptops. Instead most users are still stuck with 256GB and trying to tetris around to fit even their average amount of small data.

goalieca 5mo ago
Ironically, the AI datacenter boom is also buying up all the storage.
- apublicfrog 5mo ago
  Is that true? It feels wrong. Consumer grade SSDs and spinning disks are unlikely to be the products used in enterprise.
  - windowsrookie 5mo ago
    AI companies bought up all the NAND manufacturing capacity, limiting the available manufacturing capacity for consumer products. These data centers also use hard drives for some of their data storage.
  - spookie 5mo ago
    Look at SSD prices over the last 6 months. https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/internal-hard-drive/ https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/internal-hard-drive/
kn100 5mo ago
I reckon until the recent ai-gobbles-everything-up phenomena, this was mainly an Apple problem. Even fairly budget PCs come with at least 1tb of storage. Considering much beyond 2tb NAND gets scary pricing wise, I'm not that surprised we don't see much beyond that.
- superkuh 5mo ago
  Yes, but I don't think it was just Apple. The switch to charge trap based SSD storage set all pre-built consumer computers back a full decade in terms of storage size. We were only just getting back beyond 2010 levels when the megacorps started buying up all the flash fab capacity and now even most of the HDD plates are going to enterprise.
  - hnlmorg 5mo ago
    A full decade is a bit of an exaggeration. Not just in terms of storage capacity but especially when you consider than switching from HDDs to SSDs was a massive leap in performance for PCs and laptops.
    - superkuh 5mo ago
      There's no debating the performance. Charge trap flash makes computing so much better. It's just a shame things went SSD only. It really isn't an exaggeration when it comes to actual storage space available per prebuilt.
      - hnlmorg 5mo ago
        I don’t know what pre-builts you’ve seen, but when I bought 2 middle-range laptops 5 years ago, all the models were between 500GB to 1TB of storage. And it’s not a trap when most people aren’t going to fill 5TB of storage with their accounts spreadsheets but they are going to notice the performance difference between an SSD and a HDD.
        superkuh 5mo ago
        Yep. 500GB-1000GB is 2010 level of storage. And I in my experience they fill it up with photos and videos and then move onto unreliable, expensive, slow externals.
hnlmorg 5mo ago
This was mostly an Apple problem. 1TB SSDs were dirt cheap until the last 6 months when AI bought them all up.
- cesarb 5mo ago
  A lot of entry-level laptops from other manufacturers also had small SSDs, and Windows already consumed a large fraction of that limited storage.
chatmasta 5mo ago
It is nothing. This whole fiasco is being blown way out of proportion when there are a hundred other issues with Chrome that we could be complaining about.
mxfh 5mo ago
We're at 2021 prices, but ok.
throw7 5mo ago
I've got a cheap chromebook I take when traveling with 32gb ssd... 4gb is a huge chunk of that. But it doesn't matter as it constantly complains to me about no space available.
protocolture 5mo ago
>It's crazy to me how consumer computer storage has stalled out at the 2010 level for so long. And if anything we're going backwards now in 2026. We should be having many TBs in our home computers and laptops. Instead most users are still stuck with 256GB and trying to tetris around to fit even their average amount of small data. Well we got to the point where you can have 8TB of slow storage or 256GB of faster storage and everyone chose speed.
- Dylan16807 5mo ago
  > Well we got to the point where you can have 8TB of slow storage or 256GB of faster storage and everyone chose speed. In 2014-2015, $100 would get you either 3TB of hard drive or 256GB of SSD. In 2023-2024, $100 would get you 2TB of SSD. (For a few months even 3TB.) So yeah everyone chose the speed option, but the speed option should have kept growing. Outside of bargain basement models 1-2TB should have become the minimum size.

goalieca 5mo ago

Ironically, the AI datacenter boom is also buying up all the storage.

apublicfrog 5mo ago
Is that true? It feels wrong. Consumer grade SSDs and spinning disks are unlikely to be the products used in enterprise.
- windowsrookie 5mo ago
  AI companies bought up all the NAND manufacturing capacity, limiting the available manufacturing capacity for consumer products. These data centers also use hard drives for some of their data storage.
- spookie 5mo ago
  Look at SSD prices over the last 6 months. https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/internal-hard-drive/ https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/internal-hard-drive/

kn100 5mo ago

I reckon until the recent ai-gobbles-everything-up phenomena, this was mainly an Apple problem. Even fairly budget PCs come with at least 1tb of storage. Considering much beyond 2tb NAND gets scary pricing wise, I'm not that surprised we don't see much beyond that.

superkuh 5mo ago
Yes, but I don't think it was just Apple. The switch to charge trap based SSD storage set all pre-built consumer computers back a full decade in terms of storage size. We were only just getting back beyond 2010 levels when the megacorps started buying up all the flash fab capacity and now even most of the HDD plates are going to enterprise.
- hnlmorg 5mo ago
  A full decade is a bit of an exaggeration. Not just in terms of storage capacity but especially when you consider than switching from HDDs to SSDs was a massive leap in performance for PCs and laptops.
  - superkuh 5mo ago
    There's no debating the performance. Charge trap flash makes computing so much better. It's just a shame things went SSD only. It really isn't an exaggeration when it comes to actual storage space available per prebuilt.
    - hnlmorg 5mo ago
      I don’t know what pre-builts you’ve seen, but when I bought 2 middle-range laptops 5 years ago, all the models were between 500GB to 1TB of storage. And it’s not a trap when most people aren’t going to fill 5TB of storage with their accounts spreadsheets but they are going to notice the performance difference between an SSD and a HDD.
      - superkuh 5mo ago
        Yep. 500GB-1000GB is 2010 level of storage. And I in my experience they fill it up with photos and videos and then move onto unreliable, expensive, slow externals.

hnlmorg 5mo ago

This was mostly an Apple problem. 1TB SSDs were dirt cheap until the last 6 months when AI bought them all up.

cesarb 5mo ago
A lot of entry-level laptops from other manufacturers also had small SSDs, and Windows already consumed a large fraction of that limited storage.

chatmasta 5mo ago

It is nothing. This whole fiasco is being blown way out of proportion when there are a hundred other issues with Chrome that we could be complaining about.

mxfh 5mo ago

We're at 2021 prices, but ok.

throw7 5mo ago

I've got a cheap chromebook I take when traveling with 32gb ssd... 4gb is a huge chunk of that. But it doesn't matter as it constantly complains to me about no space available.

protocolture 5mo ago

>It's crazy to me how consumer computer storage has stalled out at the 2010 level for so long. And if anything we're going backwards now in 2026. We should be having many TBs in our home computers and laptops. Instead most users are still stuck with 256GB and trying to tetris around to fit even their average amount of small data. Well we got to the point where you can have 8TB of slow storage or 256GB of faster storage and everyone chose speed.

Dylan16807 5mo ago
> Well we got to the point where you can have 8TB of slow storage or 256GB of faster storage and everyone chose speed. In 2014-2015, $100 would get you either 3TB of hard drive or 256GB of SSD. In 2023-2024, $100 would get you 2TB of SSD. (For a few months even 3TB.) So yeah everyone chose the speed option, but the speed option should have kept growing. Outside of bargain basement models 1-2TB should have become the minimum size.