rfunk: (xkcd universe)
Rob Funk ([personal profile] rfunk) wrote2007-02-15 06:06 pm

Asking the wrong question

Remember when Deep Thought was asked the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything?
And he/it said "I'll have to think about it. For seven and a half million years." ?


Question, asked of my computer at 2:37pm today:
How large (in bytes) would a *compressed* image of my 120GB hard disk be?
sudo dd if=/dev/hda bs=1024k | gzip | wc -c

Over three and a half hours later, I don't have an answer yet.
(Maybe I should have told it to read from the disk in chunks larger than 1MB.)

At this point I'm starting to expect the answer, if I get one in my lifetime, to have a 42 in it.


Come to think of it, I think the uncompressed in-use space on the disk is around 40-42GB.


Update: 52GB (er, 52 GiB), seven hours.
114473+1 records in
114473+1 records out
120034123776 bytes transferred in 25220.845963 seconds (4759322 bytes/sec)
55900979329
09:38 PM $

Still...

[identity profile] taokodr.livejournal.com 2007-02-16 03:32 am (UTC)(link)
It would be *TOO* funny if it turned out to be 42GB, though...

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Peace!
GB!

Re: Still...

[identity profile] rfunk.livejournal.com 2007-02-16 03:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Alas, no such luck. See update....

Oh well...

[identity profile] taokodr.livejournal.com 2007-02-16 11:03 pm (UTC)(link)
Maybe another day the universe will make sense ;-)

Peace!
GB!