Hard drive space required for arcade?

[Demon-Seed]

Hey Guys
I know it is"depends" however can anyone provide an estimate to what size HD I would need? for; complete mame, all consoles, all popular arcades-zinc, raine etc...., n64, some psx,some pc... just wondering on space requirements.... I thought a few yrs ago I had 200 gb....can't recall what kinda space I would need. Also where is good cheap spot to buy HD for me in Canada...money is tight.

thx
Jim

[Kajoq]

if you're wanting to have a lot of the later systems (n64 / PS1 era) those will take up a lot more space a lot faster than older systems.

Every SNES game is ~1.5gb, One PS1 ISO can run ~700 megs easy.

I would say a 200gb would give you plenty of space though.

If newegg ships to canada they might be your best bet for a HD.  Drives have gotten really cheap lately.  A 500gb drive is only 100 US now.

[javeryh]

There's like 20 DVDs in the MAME set now so that's like 80+GB right there (although 16 of them are the CHDs so you can cut it down a lot if you don't use those games... but you did say "all").

[More Cowbell]

If you want to know what you can run on the lower side, I have chiseled things down to be able to run MAME (w/out chd's), most of the older consoles, PinMAME, and a jukebox with 300 songs. All of that runs on Tiny XP and can fit on a 5 gig hard drive. I've bought several Pentium 3 computers with small hard drives for dirt cheap (or free) and it's been nice to have this setup that allows for a lot of games on a small space. Just FYI.

[QuarterJunkie]

IMO, 5 Gb is wayyyy too small unless you are limiting what Mame roms you have to just a select few and not doing much more after that. Trust me, you will consume disk space quickly. Of course, "it depends" is really the correct answer, but buy the largest you can afford and your options will be greater. I do agree that 200 Gb is a good starting point to give you a really good variety.

[Malenko]

PSX is a huge variable, the games range from 1-650MBs

mame and CHDs is like 70 GBs
SNES is like 3 GB
genesis 4GB

get a 500GB just to be safe?

[Demon-Seed]

Hey
Ok Thanks for the input. I think bigger is better.

thx
Jim

[More Cowbell]

IMO, 5 Gb is wayyyy too small unless you are limiting what Mame roms you have to just a select few and not doing much more after that. Trust me, you will consume disk space quickly. Of course, "it depends" is really the correct answer, but buy the largest you can afford and your options will be greater. I do agree that 200 Gb is a good starting point to give you a really good variety.

I was just pointing out the other extreme for anyone who had to work with what was available. Especially if you're using an old P2 or P3 which can't run the higher end stuff anyway. Just sayin'.

[Dudeman]

I think bigger is better.

Now you sound like my girlfriend!

[lanman31337]

I have dual 320 gigs and they're just about full.

[ark_ader]

I have 400 GBs of emulators but that is for archived storage.

With Daphne, VP, Mame and the rest of the "arcade scene" emulators I would say 20gb is enough. I have 20gb ghost image on tape in case my drive goes south.

I don't see the point in having all the roms available, nice to have them agreed but impractical.  40gb sata drives are real cheap and you can use them on cabinets and get a great deal to play on.

I play about 100 games in total and the rest is on the server.

What ever you do make sure its not on some linux based NAS or server.  I had one of these    wipe the drive (the entire 500gb) and ruined my weekend. 

Have a backup of everything just in case. 

[RetroACTIVE]

C: 80G
D: 80G
E: 500G
F: 500G (work / backup)

Prob overkill but with all the different Emus... FE vids, screenies, CHDs etc... it adds up pretty quick.