Today's technical question

[silvercamaro]

Seriously, I would like to know -- and have no intention to consider this political in any way, even considering the context in which it came to mind -- can a laptop computer even hold "approximately 650,000 e-mails"?

That seems like it would take an enormous amount of hard drive space, especially considering the many e-mails that take up two or more pages, often containing photographs, lengthy attachments, emojis, videos, slide shows and random jokes forwarded by a little old lady to everybody she knows.

The laptop I'm typing this on has 8GB of RAM, which seemed astonishingly big to me when I bought it. Do I have room to add on another 645,000 jokes from the little old lady before I start deleting like crazy? (I don't really save any of the jokes, as most of them are unreadable and the rest are unfunny.)

I am curious, though.

[Bob78164]

8 GB / 500,000 e-mails is 16000 bytes per e-mail. That seems like a lot of room for nothing but text. Attachments would make them grow quickly. --Bob

[goongas]

A modern laptop hard drive can have at least 500 GB, so 650,000 text emails would easily fit on a modern laptop hard drive.

[silvercamaro]

Thanks, Bob and Goongas.

[themanintheseersuckersuit]

8 GB is the amount of Random Acccess Memory, not the measure of storage capacity.

[silvercamaro]

8 GB is the amount of Random Acccess Memory, not the measure of storage capacity.

Okay. I will go find my specifications. Eventually. I may even get it right, sooner or later.

[silverscreenselect]

8 GB / 500,000 e-mails is 16000 bytes per e-mail. Attachments would make them grow quickly. --Bob

Especially if the attachments were photos of Anthony's Wiener.

[Estonut]

8 GB is the amount of Random Acccess Memory, not the measure of storage capacity.

Okay. I will go find my specifications. Eventually. I may even get it right, sooner or later.

Hey, sc! You have a microsoft operating system, correct? On the older ones, there was an icon on the desktop labeled "My Computer." I have Win 8 and just used the search feature (brought up by putting the mouse in the upper right corner of the screen) to search for "My Computer." That brought up an option for "This PC." I clicked on that and it brought up a navigation window, very similar to the old "My Computer" display.

If you get this far (either way), you should see a reference to "C Drive." Right-click on that and then click on "Properties" to bring up the Properties window. It should default to the tab labeled "General." If you're on a different tab, click the General tab. You should see figures for your used space, free space and your disk capacity. Disk capacity is the size of your main hard drive.

[silvercamaro]

If you get this far (either way), you should see a reference to "C Drive." Right-click on that and then click on "Properties" to bring up the Properties window. It should default to the tab labeled "General." If you're on a different tab, click the General tab. You should see figures for your used space, free space and your disk capacity. Disk capacity is the size of your main hard drive.

Aha! Getting there is somewhat different in Windows 10, but I discovered I have 921 GBs on the C drive. I wish I had that much storage space, comparatively speaking, in my kitchen cabinets.

Thank you, Esto.

[BackInTex]

I'm more concerned with why 650,000 emails are on a single laptop. Typically, a person's laptop would contain a mailbox of only their active emails. How (or why) does a single user get on the distribution of 650,000 emails. For the period HRC was SoS, that is 441 emails per day, or 18 her hour, every hour for 1,473 days.

It seems to me that for the laptop to contain that many emails, whoever's laptop it is contains many many emails that were not directed to that person. Why would they be there? Should they be there (even aside from the security aspect)?

[themanintheseersuckersuit]

Aha! Getting there is somewhat different in Windows 10, but I discovered I have 921 GBs on the C drive. I wish I had that much storage space, comparatively speaking, in my kitchen cabinets.

Thank you, Esto.

The word for today is terabyte

[Bob Juch]

The emails wouldn't have to be downloaded onto the laptop. They could remain on the server and be retrieved via the Web. That's how your smartphones do it.

[Appa23]

I'm more concerned with why 650,000 emails are on a single laptop. Typically, a person's laptop would contain a mailbox of only their active emails. How (or why) does a single user get on the distribution of 650,000 emails. For the period HRC was SoS, that is 441 emails per day, or 18 her hour, every hour for 1,473 days.

It seems to me that for the laptop to contain that many emails, whoever's laptop it is contains many many emails that were not directed to that person. Why would they be there? Should they be there (even aside from the security aspect)?

Not that I need to defend HRC, but I easily can see her getting (and sending) up that many e-mails a day (though she likely would have had to have received more than that number, as she likely would have deleted some.)

In the last couple years, I likely average over 400 e-mails sent and received per day (M-F), and maybe 75-100 on weekends. I am just running a legal office (with some big cases), not an entire executive department.

[bazodee]

I'm more concerned with why 650,000 emails are on a single laptop. Typically, a person's laptop would contain a mailbox of only their active emails. How (or why) does a single user get on the distribution of 650,000 emails. For the period HRC was SoS, that is 441 emails per day, or 18 her hour, every hour for 1,473 days.

It seems to me that for the laptop to contain that many emails, whoever's laptop it is contains many many emails that were not directed to that person. Why would they be there? Should they be there (even aside from the security aspect)?

Someone particularly compulsive might have instructed the entire staff to cc: her on everything. My guess is that 99% of these will be duplicates that the FBI have already seen. But I'm still wondering why they're on Weiner's laptop, especially now that Huma has claimed that she doesn't know why they are there.

[TheConfessor]

8 GB / 500,000 e-mails is 16000 bytes per e-mail. Attachments would make them grow quickly. --Bob

Especially if the attachments were photos of Anthony's Wiener.

I happen to be in Vienna tonight. I was surprised how bigly they celebrate Halloween here. I saw tens of thousands of people in the central city reveling with costumes and painted faces.

Anyway, since the city is called Wien here, it made me more aware of the spelling of Anthony Weiner and his wiener. And I've only been here half a day, but I've already enjoyed a tasty currywurst and an awesome schnitzel sandwich. I also learned that there's no Danube here. In Wien, it's called the Donau.

[SpacemanSpiff]

8 GB / 500,000 e-mails is 16000 bytes per e-mail. That seems like a lot of room for nothing but text. Attachments would make them grow quickly. --Bob

Lawdy, I'm feeling old again. I remember buying PCs for a company where the biggest hard drives were 10MB, and the folks said, "you won't need anything more than that!" (I said, "yeah, right, do you know what kind of memory hogs I put on these things?")

[BackInTex]

I'm more concerned with why 650,000 emails are on a single laptop. Typically, a person's laptop would contain a mailbox of only their active emails. How (or why) does a single user get on the distribution of 650,000 emails. For the period HRC was SoS, that is 441 emails per day, or 18 her hour, every hour for 1,473 days.

It seems to me that for the laptop to contain that many emails, whoever's laptop it is contains many many emails that were not directed to that person. Why would they be there? Should they be there (even aside from the security aspect)?

Someone particularly compulsive might have instructed the entire staff to cc: her on everything. My guess is that 99% of these will be duplicates that the FBI have already seen. But I'm still wondering why they're on Weiner's laptop, especially now that Huma has claimed that she doesn't know why they are there.

And regardless of why, there is the fact that they are there, somewhere they shouldn't be; more evidence of a pattern of "recklessness" within the SoS in regards to cyber-security.

[ghostjmf]

I think AW's spelling may have more to do with Ellis Island or similar pt-of-entry scribes than w/ German/Austrian spelling rules.

[earendel]

8 GB / 500,000 e-mails is 16000 bytes per e-mail. That seems like a lot of room for nothing but text. Attachments would make them grow quickly. --Bob

Lawdy, I'm feeling old again. I remember buying PCs for a company where the biggest hard drives were 10MB, and the folks said, "you won't need anything more than that!" (I said, "yeah, right, do you know what kind of memory hogs I put on these things?")

Bill Gates supposedly said in 1981 that "640K ought to be enough for anyone." No one's ever been able to prove he said it.

[silverscreenselect]

And regardless of why, there is the fact that they are there, somewhere they shouldn't be; more evidence of a pattern of "recklessness" within the SoS in regards to cyber-security.

Again, it depends on what sort of documents are there. In many organizations, the boss is copied on all sorts of things regardless of whether he or she ever reads them.

I'm all for tightening up cybersecurity measures with government agencies, federal, state, and local. But it needs to be done in a non-partisan manner, with the goal of improving security, not engaging in a partisan witch hunt to "prove" the other side is guilty of doing dumb things that both sides are probably guilty of to the same extent.

[Bob Juch]

8 GB / 500,000 e-mails is 16000 bytes per e-mail. Attachments would make them grow quickly. --Bob

Especially if the attachments were photos of Anthony's Wiener.

I happen to be in Vienna tonight. I was surprised how bigly they celebrate Halloween here. I saw tens of thousands of people in the central city reveling with costumes and painted faces.

Anyway, since the city is called Wien here, it made me more aware of the spelling of Anthony Weiner and his wiener. And I've only been here half a day, but I've already enjoyed a tasty currywurst and an awesome schnitzel sandwich. I also learned that there's no Danube here. In Wien, it's called the Donau.

Make sure you visit the street called Juchgasse.

[Estonut]

I happen to be in Vienna tonight. I was surprised how bigly they celebrate Halloween here. I saw tens of thousands of people in the central city reveling with costumes and painted faces.

Anyway, since the city is called Wien here, it made me more aware of the spelling of Anthony Weiner and his wiener. And I've only been here half a day, but I've already enjoyed a tasty currywurst and an awesome schnitzel sandwich. I also learned that there's no Danube here. In Wien, it's called the Donau.

Make sure you visit the street called Juchgasse.

He probably gets enough Juchgasse around here.

[Bob78164]

I'm more concerned with why 650,000 emails are on a single laptop. Typically, a person's laptop would contain a mailbox of only their active emails. How (or why) does a single user get on the distribution of 650,000 emails. For the period HRC was SoS, that is 441 emails per day, or 18 her hour, every hour for 1,473 days.

It seems to me that for the laptop to contain that many emails, whoever's laptop it is contains many many emails that were not directed to that person. Why would they be there? Should they be there (even aside from the security aspect)?

Someone particularly compulsive might have instructed the entire staff to cc: her on everything. My guess is that 99% of these will be duplicates that the FBI have already seen. But I'm still wondering why they're on Weiner's laptop, especially now that Huma has claimed that she doesn't know why they are there.

And regardless of why, there is the fact that they are there, somewhere they shouldn't be; more evidence of a pattern of "recklessness" within the SoS in regards to cyber-security.

You did note that shinycar expressly noted that she didn't intend to consider this political in any way? I guess she didn't quite expressly state that she'd prefer to keep politics out of this thread, but that's certainly how I understood her post. --Bob

[silvercamaro]

You did note that shinycar expressly noted that she didn't intend to consider this political in any way? I guess she didn't quite expressly state that she'd prefer to keep politics out of this thread, but that's certainly how I understood her post. --Bob

It's okay, Bob. I don't pretend to decree how and in what direction any thread should proceed. I simply was trying to find out what was a possible maximum capacity for an ordinary laptop. I specifically didn't name names because I wanted to avoid, for as long as possible, answers skewed toward or against any particular candidate, his or her assistants, and seemingly creepazoid spouses of said assistants. You'll notice that I dropped out of the discussion once the names started to appear.

"Out" once again is where I intend to go.

[Bob78164]

You did note that shinycar expressly noted that she didn't intend to consider this political in any way? I guess she didn't quite expressly state that she'd prefer to keep politics out of this thread, but that's certainly how I understood her post. --Bob

It's okay, Bob. I don't pretend to decree how and in what direction any thread should proceed. I simply was trying to find out what was a possible maximum capacity for an ordinary laptop. I specifically didn't name names because I wanted to avoid, for as long as possible, answers skewed toward or against any particular candidate, his or her assistants, and seemingly creepazoid spouses of said assistants. You'll notice that I dropped out of the discussion once the names started to appear.

"Out" once again is where I intend to go.

I've now met BiT in person and found that he can be quite reasonable for a Neanderthal, so I thought he might have overlooked your apparent preference rather than deciding to disregard it. --Bob