[Athen] Average Book Volumes

[Kelmer, Susan M.]

> Behalf Of Ron Stewart

> What I am trying to estimate is the average size of the books you are

> archiving.  I am working with several folks who have gone to an entire

> virtual campus network and we are try to estimate needed storage space

> over

> the next few years given the average file size being =X


I would pose this question:  Storage is cheap.  Why are they worried about storage?  

In six years of production, I finally filled up one TB of storage for books in alternate format. You have some of my numbers (sent privately) and even if our production was twice what we are doing now, that still means I wouldn't have filled up 1TB for at least three years.  That kind of storage is unbelievably cheap and should be part of any campus' master plan, considering the move to digital of all things multi-media.  

I'm not naïve, I realize that the true cost of storage is in the SAN's, but once they are set up, they are ultimately scalable and can cover years of growth.  

The bigger question, in my mind, is can their backbone can handle it.  Can they give users the access at reasonable speeds they would need to access the data over the long term?  Have they wired up (and wireless-upped) their campuses with enough speed and capacity to do it?  Storage is the small issue.

Just my thoughts on a Thursday, for what it's worth. 

Susan Kelmer
Adaptive Technology Specialist/
Lab Coordinator, Campus Labs and Classrooms
St. Louis Community College - Meramec
314-984-7951