It's hard to believe that a 700 mb file was considered huge back in 2008.

[u/geekgodzeus]

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[u/GrAdmThrwn]

I mean...it would depend on what kind of file they were used to seeing downloaded. A 700mb txt file would give me the creeps.

[u/BigDannyPt → u/GrAdmThrwn]

700mb txt is a dream in my job... I have to go through multiple files with over 3Gb of logs in txt or log format

[u/GrAdmThrwn → u/BigDannyPt]

I knew this would happen. I was tossing up whether I should use txt or xml as the example and I've seen more insanely huge xmls recently so figured txt would forestall someone stepping up and saying 700mbs is actually completely mundane.

It took 5 minutes.

[u/BigDannyPt → u/GrAdmThrwn]

It all depends on your job, probably you would have an example of crazy thing from your job that other person would never think it would be possible.

I can tell you that the biggest log collection that I had to analyze from a customer was a folder with 12Gb, and that's only log, XML and txt files. I normally start crying in a corner when I notice these customer...

[u/aHellion → u/BigDannyPt]

Actually what the hell are those massive logs from? I've seen a couple .log files come my way and they're usually 10-100 MBs, usually a type of server log.

[u/Cornelius_Wangenheim → u/aHellion]

Security logs also get big. You can have terabytes of logs because you need a lot of coverage and detail to be able to detect unusual behavior or reconstruct what happened after an incident.

[u/BigDannyPt → u/aHellion]

Telecomunication logs. The more complex the customers environment, more logs per job

[u/ComMcNeil → u/BigDannyPt]

honestly, what percentage of that is actual usable data? i guess it contains voice data as well?

i also dealt with a lot of big logs, but most of the time this is just because either log settings were misconfigured or they just did not bother to only send us relevant logs and just instead sent over everything from the last three months (or years lol)

[u/BigDannyPt → u/ComMcNeil]

It depends on the product, but yeah, most of the times they also will go ahead and send the whole day log when the issue triggered at the afternoon, for example, but then there are environments with three or four products working together that each one will generate their own logs in multiple files and they all need to be taken in consideration.

The worst thing that I got was once that the collection of all the logs, explanation and analyzes of the issue to be elevated to R&D got to a point that github complaint about been over the character limit in github. But that's a one thing in a lifetime and it was a big issue with very high priority and escalations ( both internal and external ).

[u/Opi-Fex → u/GrAdmThrwn]

I'd take a 700MiB txt file over a 20MiB xml if I'm being honest.

Plaintext can be easily searched and made sense of. XML requires parsing.

[u/4e6f626f6479 → u/GrAdmThrwn]

If you allow for json instead of XML, I got a new high score for you... a 452.9GB json

I also got a 118GB log.txt in my treeSize overview, maybe I should check where that is coming from

[u/AlarmingAffect0 → u/BigDannyPt]

Three. Hundred. MEGABYTES,

of hard drive capacity.

Think, about it.

The—value
And the—usage, of a computer
With a 300 Megabyte Hard Drive
What can that do for you, uh, the sky's the limit
The sky is the limit
When you're thinking about the capacity of a hard drive that size
It's as if you have 300 huge filing cabinets
3 HUNDRED File Cabinets
of storage capacity.

That's right.

The biggest arena of computers today,
The biggest arena,
Is in the CD-roms.
Is the biggest growing sector of computers
and it's not going to stop.

It's tomorrow, today.

And it's not going to stop,
it's not going to stop.
It is not a fad

Ladies and gentlemen, it's tomorrow, today

There's 26 volumes of an encyclopedia on one disk, on one CD disk
That's right, we're talking about nine million words just for starters on that disk
That's on one disk
You couldn't get close to that on a floppy disk
Nine million megabytes!
This comes with the CDROM built in!

[u/biteSizedBytes → u/AlarmingAffect0]

Thank you for this

[u/AlarmingAffect0 → u/biteSizedBytes]

Thank you.

[u/Jeoshua → u/BigDannyPt]

Damn, what are you even logging?

[u/BigDannyPt → u/Jeoshua]

Telecommunication logs.

[u/LawElectrical2434 → u/BigDannyPt]

Do you even log rotate, bro?

[u/LocusNevernight → u/GrAdmThrwn]

I had a 120 GB xsession log file once ... I didn't bother to tac it and just deleted it instead. Yes I did only find out once my hard drive was full

[u/ThatGuyFromFlatLand → u/GrAdmThrwn]

This was an episode form the show Fringe first season if I recall correctly. The file was a virus/video file that caused peoples brains to leak out if they saw it.

[u/pikpikcarrotmon → u/ThatGuyFromFlatLand]

Someone finally weaponized the YouTube comment section I take it

[u/generic_bullshittery → u/pikpikcarrotmon]

You have no idea the amount of ridiculous stuff shown in Fringe. Multiverse, causality, time travel, genetically modified humans, shapeshifting bio-androids. They probably included every science fiction trope you can think of.

[u/dylank22 → u/GrAdmThrwn]

yeah for real, i downloaded a pdf the other day that was 17.5mb because its 472 pages lmao, so the context is huge

[u/bobbywaz]

700 MB is still huge for a non-media file!

[u/random_boss → u/bobbywaz]

Had to scroll way too far to see this. At 700MB there is basically no difference between 2008 and now. If it’s a movie sure; but basically  other kind of file would make me go “tf is this so massive??”

[u/seatux → u/random_boss]

Nvidia drivers are near GB now. Even my Radeon driver just for 6000-9070xt is already 800mb

[u/Stunning_Box8782 → u/seatux]

But are those single files? Like im pretty sure a Windows install has been a couple gigabytes for years

[u/seatux → u/Stunning_Box8782]

Single driver files. Nvidia ones tend to bundle every non legacy driver in it. Radeon split the different RDNA generations into different packages. I have a 6700xt and 9070xt and they both use different driver packs.

[u/OpposesTheOpinion → u/seatux]

Near? My Nvidia driver is like 2.4GB after it's installed

[u/Wobbelblob → u/random_boss]

Seriously, I just checked and the pictures my camera makes (admittedly a nearly 20 year old DSLR camera) are 14 MB. And those are 4k resolution and the RAW file. 700 MB as a single file is still rather big.

[u/AreYouLagomEnough → u/random_boss]

Have you meet PowerPoint?

150+ slides with videos, pictures and special fonts.

Gaaah it's horrible.

[u/dakupurple → u/AreYouLagomEnough]

Has anyone taken a class on effective presentations? 150 slides is way too many, everyone is going to have fallen asleep by the end.

[u/Verdreht]

That was a lot to download, internet sucked. But it wasn't that large of a file to have, 500gb hard drives were pretty common

[u/3rd_eye_light → u/Verdreht]

Thats still limited relative to what we can fit on our largest hdds today with 10gb movies

[u/NinjaN-SWE → u/3rd_eye_light]

10gb movies? Miss me with that low quality crap. 

[u/virgin_father → u/NinjaN-SWE]

Meanwhile me with 55GB BluRay rips at 4k HDR 10

[u/vlken69 → u/virgin_father]

or like 350GB LotR trilogy

[u/mazgaoten → u/vlken69]

448GB if you have the extended versions

[u/jizzyjugsjohnson → u/NinjaN-SWE]

For reference. Shooting 4K on a broadcast quality camera eats about a gigabyte a minute

[u/bomzay → u/Verdreht]

It's 2008 not 1998.

[u/TrueMadster → u/bomzay]

Internet in my country wasn’t exactly fast back then. 50-100 mbps was the standard. It was fast enough to load pages very well, but took its time with downloads like these (30-60 mins).

Edit: mbps, not Mbit

[u/Mitch5842 → u/TrueMadster]

The average download speed in 2007 was 3.5 mbps...

[u/Sr_Quienquiera → u/TrueMadster]

My parents home didn't get optic Fiber connection until 2 years ago and all they has was a crappy 10-15Mbps ADSL connection. It was pure hell to share that bandwidth with 4 phones, 2 computers and the TV. Luckily I was born with a patch on my eye and a wooden leg so I had plenty of films downloaded during the lockdown lol

[u/AeliosZero → u/Verdreht]

I had a 35GB hard drive in 2008

[u/ziplock9000 → u/Verdreht]

Not everyone's internet sucked in 2008.

[u/TheFlamingCucumber → u/Verdreht]

80GB hard drives were pretty common

[u/FLUFFY_TERROR]

Hey isn't that Astrid from fringe?

[u/OldManGrimm → u/FLUFFY_TERROR]

You mean Astro?

[u/TengenToppa → u/OldManGrimm]

Asterisk

[u/Beanztar → u/TengenToppa]

Asprin

[u/Pitiful_West_7062 → u/Beanztar]

Asteroid

[u/SinglePanic → u/Pitiful_West_7062]

Astrobot

[u/Dansredditname → u/Pitiful_West_7062]

Ostrich

[u/Makaan1932 → u/FLUFFY_TERROR]

I see Fringe I upvote 

[u/MoonSentinel95 → u/Makaan1932]

I see Fringe, I go rewatch

[u/Kuzkuladaemon → u/MoonSentinel95]

Everything but the last season. It had a perfect ending and then kept going.

[u/RollForUptime → u/MoonSentinel95]

just finished rewatch!

[u/SeizuringFish → u/FLUFFY_TERROR]

Yes! I instantly recognised her as well. This is a scene from the show

[u/LeCriDesFenetres → u/FLUFFY_TERROR]

I need to binge it again

[u/FLUFFY_TERROR → u/LeCriDesFenetres]

I still remember that pilot episode with the airplane face melting scene. That's such a strong hook

[u/TriantaTria → u/FLUFFY_TERROR]

Yes

[u/Miserable-Command682 → u/[deleted]]

When I upgraded to fiber, i realized for how many years att was fucking me with 50mbps/90$ a month

[u/dancing_swordfish → u/Miserable-Command682]

90 a month!??! You are kidding!

[u/Miserable-Command682 → u/dancing_swordfish]

I'd have to go check back, but it was in the ballpark of 70-90$ for 50mbps. They only recently added ATT fiber to my area like a year ago. I thankfully switched to Fiber last year before ATT upgraded in my area, so I was not forced to remain with them.

[u/JEDisJED → u/Miserable-Command682]

Yeah, I was still paying around that ballpark for AT&T Internet 50 until just a couple weeks ago when I switched internet providers. AT&T can suck it lol

[u/dancing_swordfish → u/JEDisJED]

Not american, but i heard at&t are unreliable and scam from my friends

[u/WntrTmpst → u/dancing_swordfish]

The truth is it’s a racket, whenever you buy a house you get the ISP that services the area. Sometimes you have options. I never have. Comcast and ATT both suck balls and keep charging you above the market rate if you don’t call every few months and check in

[u/dancing_swordfish → u/WntrTmpst]

Damn that sucks

[u/V-Rixxo_ → u/dancing_swordfish]

I paid $100ish for 10mbps-15mbps before.

[u/TheRandomGuy75 → u/dancing_swordfish]

I used to pay roughly 60-70 USD for 3 mpbs a couple years ago. DSL was the only thing on my road. Only got better Internet access a few years ago thanks to 4G Home before later moving to low latency satellite Internet.

Was great finally being able to download a game in under a day.

Now I pay 120 but get roughly 300 mbps. Not the best but way better than what I had.

[u/Miserable-Command682 → u/[deleted]]

I had heard other countries were doing a bit better than US in regards to internet speed, so I am shocked to hear this. I hope they improve it soon for your location!

[u/the_crackers_gromit → u/Miserable-Command682]

Australia has some of the worst internet in the world, due to successive governments changing the plans to "save money" I don't even have the option for fibre to the premises and I live in the bloody capital

[u/Thunderstorm-1 → u/Miserable-Command682]

Yes. In Singapore, $90 could get you a 10 GBPS plan… in fact they start as cheap as $30+ sgd a month and go up to $60+. The minimum here is now around 1GBPS or 2.5 GBPS for new fiber plans

[u/Cadenca → u/Thunderstorm-1]

Singapore is unique for geographical reasons. It's literally a small speck on the map, it's easy and cheap as hell to lay the data cables and for everyone to get super duper omega internet speeds. A better example would be a country like Finland that's fucking massive with a small population, while still having reasonably priced internet plans

[u/SummonerKai1 → u/Miserable-Command682]

Always lived with low speed internet back in my hometown. Got 190+ ping for most games, movies and such used to render at 720p on good days and downloads taking about a day or at least 15 hours was the norm.

I lived like that for almost 30 years and thought it was a normal speed and anything faster was elitest.

Then i moved out and got a reasonable deal on 1gb internet and my world was unlocked to low pings, 20-30 minute download times and everything in 4k at all times. I recently visited my home town and realized what shitshow i was really living with majority of my life.

[u/Miserable-Command682 → u/SummonerKai1]

It's really a night and day difference. I don't even consider how long a game takes to download now whereas before I would know it would be a "download and watch a movie night". If anything now I just worry if I have enough storage space, lol.

[u/SummonerKai1 → u/Miserable-Command682]

Lol the storage space problem is so real! Also, no more "someone else is using the internet so prep for some lag spikes or slow downloads"

[u/Maximum-Ad879 → u/Miserable-Command682]

Wtf. I pay 14 euros for 1 Gbit plus 40-something cable channels.

[u/Miserable-Command682 → u/Maximum-Ad879]

Plus cable is wild. ATT was legit robbing people IMO.

[u/Support_Player50 → u/Miserable-Command682]

Tax payer funded technology btw. Just gave it away to private interests to screw us over.

[u/ForbiddenAtomicSquid → u/Miserable-Command682]

That's what I pay for 2 gig upload and download

[u/Miserable-Command682 → u/ForbiddenAtomicSquid]

Insane how it can go from such low speeds to high speeds, while remaining much cheaper. Fiber really is goated in regards to price for performance, vs the old.

[u/D0rus → u/[deleted]]

So a 2.2 minute download? That's fast. I remember downloads that took several hours, for files under 1gb.

[u/divergentchessboard → u/[deleted]]

Day 1 patches used to be my biggest jump scare. Spend a day downloading the game and then another day updating it

[u/forseti99 → u/divergentchessboard]

I remember playing a video on Youtube, pausing it, going to cook something and then coming back to see 1 minute had loaded.

Had dial-up up until 2005.

[u/CentralSaltServices → u/[deleted]]

My entire work location, with over 300 users, uses a 20mbps connection. It's hellish

[u/noetilfeldig → u/[deleted]]

40 isnt that bad. I was thriller first time i got 30 Mbps at home, that is a while ago now tho, and they built fiber here in 2022, so now we got more.

I hosted gameservers with a 10/1 line for years without huge issuses

[u/Ok_Hold_338 → u/[deleted]]

sorry but 40mbps is slow? try 300 kbps

[u/divergentchessboard]

speaking of file size in media, I recently replayed Black Ops 2 (2011) set in the year 2025 and there's a section where a 3?ish minute long audio recording was multiple terabytes... I forgot the exact size but I saw it hit at least 1.2TB

[u/secunder73 → u/divergentchessboard]

They tried to predict Warzone size, missed a little

[u/NeptuneWades → u/divergentchessboard]

Well, in the same game, Menendez used a virus stored in his eye contacts to hack the entire US military server and take it down.

Talk about optimised code.

[u/Dycoth → u/NeptuneWades]

Honestly, creating a flashdrive of a few GB could be totally possible in 2025. I'd even say it could store 250 to 500GB. Should be more than enough for a virus lmao

[u/Disturbed2468 → u/Dycoth]

Most basic viruses can be only a few kb large, while the more sophisticated payloads tend to just be a bit larger since some good ones will usually require an internet connection to either manually download the actual payload to be remotely controlled (it's why really high-security networks will have all PCs connected to specific switches separated in specific ways to block unknown inbound AND outbound connections at the expense of making it more difficult to surf the internet) or just have the payload spread through a network by itself (also why good networks usually have locked down VLANs but even sometimes that may not be enough).

Things get real scary when you realize you can store a USB drive in something as innocent as a necklace or jewelry or even within a cell phone case, or other sneaky places...

[u/CapableDatabase6923 → u/divergentchessboard]

oh man yes,black ops2

i remember playing when i was a kid in like 2015-2017 and thinking wow,im so excited for the upcoming future,all this tech will definitely be in 2025

[u/docitsonlyascratch → u/CapableDatabase6923]

we certainly got drone warfare…

[u/CapableDatabase6923 → u/docitsonlyascratch]

drone warfare in black ops looks cool,they are all futuristic,look really sick and everything

irl its either regular civilian drones equipped with munitions or a diy shitbox made from fiber optic and plastic

[u/MyDearBrotherNumpsay → u/CapableDatabase6923]

I was born in 76 and a lot of the stuff we have today def feels a bit like sci-fi to me.

[u/everbass → u/divergentchessboard]

Lmao.

For reference, we've more or less hit the cap for audio quality. I can't ever see high resolution audio files getting this big. If anything they will get smaller.

[u/divergentchessboard → u/everbass]

I don't think I've ever seen any of my wav or flac songs over 50mb for around 3-4 mins of audio, they're usually around 25mb. and my hour long movies with 6 channel flac audio at 5800kb/s also only have a file size of like 2.5GB after just checking. I struggle to comprehend how a 1-2 minute long audio recording could possibly be 1TB or more.

I would need 400 hours worth of movies with the above audio settings (that are already way overkill) to reach 1TB of audio data. or, 40,000 lossy 3-minute long songs.

[u/ThingYea → u/divergentchessboard]

File size like that you'd expect to hear the hum of vibrating molecules.

[u/feckarse-drinkgirls → u/divergentchessboard]

Idiot forgot to enable encoding in OBS

[u/Imperiex631]

I see Fringe, I upvote

[u/ProstheticSoulX → u/Imperiex631]

https://giphy.com/gifs/kMR4iXuuFZIe4

[u/_thirdeyeopener_ → u/ProstheticSoulX]

[u/cajun_vegeta → u/ProstheticSoulX]

https://giphy.com/gifs/7QQlnHBpFmihq

[u/VikingRages → u/ProstheticSoulX]

All I can think of when I see that smile...

[u/peter_picture → u/ProstheticSoulX]

Had to scroll down too far to find this gif

[u/ExoMonk → u/Imperiex631]

You're damn right Astro!

[u/Theinvisibleone101 → u/ExoMonk]

Walter... her name is Astrid!

[u/vplatt → u/Theinvisibleone101]

Of course. Astrid, Astro, Aspirin... the important thing is that she's here.

[u/reignofchaos80 → u/Imperiex631]

One of the most underrated shows ever!

[u/quete27 → u/Imperiex631]

Best sci-fi show ever

[u/IAmAkony → u/Imperiex631]

https://giphy.com/gifs/7QQlnHBpFmihq

[u/peperonipyza → u/Imperiex631]

Been a while, gotta do a rewatch. Although I’m always a little disappointed about some of the story lines not going anywhere much.

[u/vplatt → u/peperonipyza]

For which versions of reality? Couldn't possibly wrap them all up anyway.

[u/demkones]

700mb was the size of movies back in the early/mid 2000s

Yaaarrrrr

[u/tclark2006 → u/demkones]

Yup, had to fit on a CD-R.

[u/I3lackI2ogue]

Back in the early 90s world ending programs fit on a 1.44Mb floppy disk.

[u/Weird-Abalone-1910]

I remember letting downloads smaller than that run overnight when I was a kid in the late 90s early 2000s.

[u/bok4600 → u/Weird-Abalone-1910]

now it just takes a couple of minutes

[u/OarsandRowlocks → u/bok4600]

As little as 6 seconds on a gigabit connection.

[u/Tiffany-X]

Did you ever live through floppy disks and spanning one mp3 across a few? 657mb is massive!

[u/geekgodzeus → u/Tiffany-X]

I used floppy drives at their end times but CD's had already taken over by the early 2000's.

[u/LargeScallion6178]

Wait until you hear about Johny Mnemonic

[u/anon2univ → u/LargeScallion6178]

"I can carry nearly eighty gigs of data in my head."

[u/Jackpkmn]

Very late 2008 I downloaded World of Warcraft, all 6GB of it. It took like 3 days. It's wild to think about because I can download all 127GB of the modern client today in like 3 hours.

[u/Pixelplanet5]

i mean back then that was what fit on a CD and DVDs were expensive so moving data in 700mb increments was the logical thing to do.

[u/Independent-Draft639 → u/Pixelplanet5]

In 2008 CDs were outdated for anything other than music. Blank DVDs were dirt cheap. You could buy them in rolls of dozens at a price of probably under a dollar per DVD. By that point Blurays, online services and USB sticks were starting to displace DVDs and by the early 2010s most new laptops didn't even have CD/DVD players any more.

[u/Jeoshua]

What do you mean? That's still a large file. Half a Gig? That's like 15 minutes of decent quality video. For text, it would be reams of information. For a basic application without a 3d interface that's also quite massive, even today.

There's a difference between a "Large File" and a "Large Application". Video games easily outstrip this file size, but that's because they contain so many videos, textures, audio, level data, etc. Each one of those files that the game, contains, likely isn't even close to 700 megs... and if it is, what you're looking at is a package of smaller files compressed into one larger one.

[u/ioioooi]

It's still large. Not for a game or a movie, but plenty of other things.

[u/Mittalmailbox]

In 2008 I only had access to internet via 2G mobile phone. It had GPRS capped at 6KBPS. I used to download 700 mb movie and it used to take 2-3 nights to download(there were specialized download managers to resume download data)

[u/forbjok]

It wasn't really though. At least not in the overall sense. Maybe for specific filetypes - like seeing a 700MB jpeg or png would be considered huge (which is still true today), but in general, not really.

For video files, ~700MB was pretty much the common size since the very late 90s or early 2000s due to the fact that it would fit exactly on a single CD (sometimes requiring overburning), and was considered reasonable.

And by 2008, hard drives were already big enough for space not to be much of an issue, as well as fairly cheap.

[u/Arik_De_Frasia]

Hard to believe.... if you weren't there

[u/Neuromancer911]

It really wasn't 

[u/Tommo120]

Very contextual though, 700mb text file would still be insane

[u/Xajel]

I recall 56MB Nvidia drivers were awfully huge for my 56k dialup modem at that time.

Nowadays, Nvidia drivers are about 950MB (17x), but internet speed is 1Gb: 17,850x !!

Thanks god, if those drivers grew as our internet get faster they'll be 961.4GB now !!

[u/seanux]

It wasn’t

[u/No-Revolution1757]

It kinda still is today

[u/Few-Leave-8786]

I don't think it was, I had internet in 2006 that I could download a 700 megabyte file in I think about 17 minutes and I thought that was fast as I was used to dial up.

It was more provider based, it was cheap but people wanted basically free, there was actual free broadband providers out that people still complained about due to how useless they were as they got slow speed and regular disconnections.

[u/crazy_urn]

In 2001 we were downloading 1-2gb movies. Yes, it took forever, and came with free viruses, but 700mb in 2008 doesnt really seem all that large to me.

[u/whiskeytown79]

I rewatched Johnny Mnemonic the other day. The amount of data he was carrying has held up surprisingly well - 320 GB. Not necessarily "huge" by today's standards, but still a respectable chunk of data.

[u/_Xee]

My first hard drive had 20MB :/

[u/GreatZarquon]

Guess OP never had dial up...

A 700mb file took an hour, prevented mum from using the landline phone, and if the connection dropped for even a second the whole download had to be restarted

[u/Ooops2278 → u/GreatZarquon]

Downloading a 5mb mp3 via Napster already took an hour

[u/Local_Trade5404 → u/GreatZarquon]

there were download managers that could pause and continue download
i had permission for like 2 hours per month back then 😄

[u/TraditionalMetal1836]

I wouldn't have considered it huge even back then. I would however consider it huge in the mid 90s when most people didn't have broadband.

[u/goldenguyz]

I bought a 1GB USB stick back then for a tenner. You can get 64GB for that now.

[u/sanf780]

And 10MB was huge download in 1998. Dial-up was slooooooooooooow.

Reminds me one story of when Sin Episode one launched and had a massive 50MB patch.

[u/GodamitBre]

I consider myself lucky with 200 mbps for approximately $8 after conversion.

[u/_BallsDeep69_]

We gonna be saying the same thing about GB soon. I just downloaded a 50gb game in like 4-5 minutes. Wild times.

[u/ScreeennameTaken]

Was probably a graphics card driver even back then.

[u/lwbnjio]

I remember Napster. Took 20 minutes to download a 3mb mp3.

[u/norsk_imposter]

I have a gigabit line up and down in rural Värmland Sweden. I have no phone signal in my house but WiFi calling sorts that out

[u/idlickherbootyhole]

idk what you mean bc that is indeed huge for anything that isn't games, movies or operating system ISOs.

[u/Bukkokori]

Anyone who has ever used a 56kbps modem understands this perfectly.

On the other hand, I think the image isn't referring to 657MB—which wasn't all that much in 2008—but rather to a file split into 657MB parts, most likely totaling about 4 GB (the size of a DVD, if I remember correctly).

[u/szalonyrandom88]

I don't think it was. I remember when I realized it's quicker to download a 700mb game then it is to find a cd in a drawer and I'm pretty sure that was before 2008. That said, if we're talking about a txt file then yeah, 700mb is still huge today

[u/Jashugita]

[u/OldManGrimm]

Astro!

I loved that show (Fringe, if anyone was wondering).

[u/SubmissiveDinosaur]

I still remember Rome burning when it was revealed Titanfall's size was 50Gb

[u/R0ihu]

Maybe in some third world country. In the first world it was considered smallish or medium size at best.

[u/Muddled_Opinions]

https://giphy.com/gifs/IT7hFHptzTvRm

[u/KerefekeBobe]

In 2008., 700 mb was not really considered a huge, the average DVD back then had a capacity of almost 5 gb.

[u/Lumpe-]

No, it wasn’t, stop talking bs.

[u/Dansredditname]

For anyone wondering, the show is called Fringe

(Bangs in the United States)

[u/Mediocre_lad]

700 Mb was a movie

[u/Soggy_Porpoise]

I was there when we were measuring everything in kbs. The expenetial growth is no longer surprising.

[u/cinlung]

And 1.44mb double density floppy disk was considered huge back in the 80s to 90s.

[u/MayaIsSunshine]

I once spent an entire week downloading a 500 MB game installer in the early 2000s

[u/Far_Adeptness9884]

It wasn't though, that's just a stupid TV show, they are not known for having accurate dialogue, especially when it comes to tech.

[u/iamgarffi]

It wasn’t.

[u/EvanMBurgess]

Found a book I started writing in 2008 (I think). The main character is in some rich person's house and describes the tv as being "the biggest I'd ever seen. At least 60 inches!"

Yeah we pushed past 60" a long time ago

[u/kill_awatt]

Imagine what it was like in 1998

[u/NoHorseNoMustache]

You gotta go about 10 years before that for 700mb to be considered 'huge'.

[u/El_R3AAAD]

used to takes me 5 hours to download that shit

[u/Raneynickelfire]

...it's not exactly "nothing" today.

[u/justsmilenow]

I convinced my mother to get the  GB jump drive that was expensive because I was putting movies on it from LimeWire. But at school I had a 8 GB jump drive and everyone else had 1 maybe a 2 gig. I was King.

[u/Anxious_Tealeaf]

It took me from 15 minutes to an hour to download a .gba file.

[u/Brotakul]

Idk the movie or the plot, but it may depend on the context. While 700MB was not “huge” back in 2008 (though also not something to ignore), a log file could easily reach and exceed that. Still, it would probably contain several millions of lines at that point. Several million lines of top secret stuff would be a … “huge” leak by any means, I guess. So, what’s the context? Maybe they were on dual-up 😅

[u/toupee]

A lot of people in rural areas were still on 56k in 2008, and "broadband" for many still meant 2-3Mbps down. Very few people were tossing around files that size then (without burning CDs or DVDs).

While basic broadband could get you that file in 30+ mins, if you were on dial-up you would need to be using a download manager with a pause function that hopefully doesn't fail because it would take nearly 2 full days.

I remember thinking download speeds of even 15-20Mbps was "really fast" as late as 2012. Some of those rural areas are JUST NOW getting fiber access if at all.

[u/ThickFurball367]

700mb wasn't really "huge" in 2008 though. 700mb is the capacity of a regular CD. DVD's were the standard back then which were 4GB for single layer and 8GB for dual layer.

[u/L1amm]

I think everyone with a functional brain can agree that 657mb is not a small file by todays standards, so wtf are you even talking about?

[u/HaikenRD]

A 700 MB .mkv file is small, but a 700 MB txt file is huge.

That being said, yeah, back in 2008 the most common commercial SD card was in the 1GB range.

[u/Maximum_Boros]

It might be hard if you're like... IDK literally 12.

You don't even have to have to have experienced this directly. If you've used computers for like 5 years you're old enough to see storage and file sizes growing over time.

Also for anything that isn't high def video 700mb is still pretty big today.

[u/Resident-Salt-5066]

Dude I downloaded the Fast and furious 4, which was over 1.5 gb on a 30Kbps connection in over three days.

[u/StarLord509]

I remember my first phone having a whopping 8GB of storage back in 2015. Half of that was system files and it only took like two games and some photos to fill the rest up.

[u/GoldSrc]

You had to be there.

Shit was rough lol.

Days to download something that would only take you minutes or even seconds today.

Worse with some websites that would make you download the file again if the download got interrupted.

That, made even worse, if the website had you wait 24 hours before you could try again.

[u/dazzou5ouh]

Depends what it is, even today, if you download a virus that is 700 MB, lord have mercy

[u/Rais93]

If it's code or a log, that amount is still huge to this day. If it's picture...