Where does all this data come from?

It's about time to do a complete backup of the Excel Math editorial production machines. (You back up your computer too, don't you? No?) As a result, some of my machines are occupying themselves, and I will use the numbers they report as subject matter for the blog today.

Since elementary school kids are operating phones, downloading music, playing videos and games - they are more than capable of learning basic concepts of data management.

We address this to some extent in Excel Math curriculum. We have a series of lessons on cell phones filling up the memory, and some on the cost of sending many text messages when you don't have an unlimited plan. We plan to add more on this subject, as protecting your data means doing a few calculations now and then.

I did a survey of my computers and this is the result:

First editorial machine:

• 249.2 gigabytes of space
• 154.1 gigabytes of data
• 242,893 folders
• 1,038,000 files are present
• if we divide the number of files by folders, we have an average of 4.27 files per folder
• if we divide the data size by the number of files, we have 155k per file

On the second, older laptop:

• 55.9 gigabytes of space
• 52.75 gigabytes of data (Warning! Drive is almost full!)
• 138,334 folders
• 519,617 files
• if we divide the number of files by folders, we have an average of 3.75 files per folder 
• if we divide the data size by the number of files, we have 106k per file

On our server:

• 74.5 gigabytes of space
  
• 46.0 gigabytes of data
• 34,679 folders
• 355,797 files
• if we divide the number of files by folders, we have an average of 10.25 files per folder  
• if we divide the data size by the number of files, we have 135k per file 

On the main external drive:

• 245 gigabytes of space
  
• 236 gigabytes of data (Warning! Drive is almost full!)
• 238,621 folders
• 1,872,976 files
• if we divide the number of files by folders, we have an average of 7.9 files per folder  
• if we divide the data size by the number of files, we have 132k per file 

 What analysis can I make? Are there any things to learn here?

1. Both machines 1 and 2 have had active users, with email, iPhoto, iTunes, Office, Dreamweaver, Creative Suite, etc.
2. By design, our server runs no applications. It hands out files when requested, and stores them when we are finished. The data files on the server are vector graphics or pdfs. They are relatively small compared to the music, photo and video files users are creating by the thousands nowadays.
3. The external drive has several hundred thousand read-only clip art files that fill 1/3 of its space
4. I have two more drives to check before I will be finished.
5. Between the time I started the blog post and now,  I ran to the store and got a new backup drive for $100. Look how much it can hold: