Reston (VA) - Approximately three gigabytes of storage is taken up with MP3 files on the average PC in the US, according to a new report from Comscore.

This makes MP3 the most common file type on American PCs, says Comscore, followed distantly by Microsoft Word.  The report said the average PC had around 197 Word files, as well as 100 PDF files, 77 Microsoft Excel files, and 36 Windows Media files.

To house all those files, Comscore showed that 39% of household computers had hard drives of 70 GB or more.  The research firm also broke down Internet traffic based on what kind of files were on a user's PC.  For example, 39.4% of people who frequented gaming sites were defined as "heavy MP3" users, while those with a lot of Word files were more likely to visit business and finance sites.

The results are part of Comscore's new "Tech Matrix" analysis service, which the company hopes will bring valuable information to advertisers and industry watchers, as a more defined scope than previous reports that just showed the top Internet among typical age/race/income demographics.

Darn. Below Average

Aug 03, 2007 11:32     

What will I do.
David report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Average schmaverage Or maybe 1 computer in 10 has ...

Aug 03, 2007 12:22     

Average schmaverage Or maybe 1 computer in 10 has 30 GBs of MP3 files on it.
LORD ORION report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

And of that 3GB of MP3s...

Aug 03, 2007 12:29     

How many were illegally obtained? hehe
random_guy01 report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Busting the Average

Aug 03, 2007 12:41     

Well I've got 15GB on mine with the potential for probably 5-10 more if I ripped the rest of my CD collection. Damn all those other, less savy, PC owners bring done the average.
Will report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

vob files

Aug 03, 2007 12:52     

They forgot about ripped DVD's. They also forgot to examine my computer...
Luscious report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

what about .avi? I have about 10 gigs of mp3s but a...

Aug 03, 2007 13:07     

what about .avi? I have about 10 gigs of mp3s but about 100 gigs of avi!
Shadowmaster625 report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Stopped counting

Aug 03, 2007 13:12     

I stopped counting how many MP3s I has when I passed 14,000. I guess I am above average.
K report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

3gb is avg u say ??

Aug 03, 2007 13:15     

hmm .. well then my ~60gb of mp3's is 20x national avg .. hehe i'm not even gonna comment about all my other media files
andrew report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Not much...

Aug 03, 2007 13:28     

That doesn't seem like very much. I have 20gb(~4,000 songs) of mp3's and many of my friends have around double that. Of course my collection isn't done, so by the time I am done collecting the music I like I will probably be around 40gb.
Spikke report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Above average

Aug 03, 2007 14:06     

5,000 on mine.
Robert G report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

HOW DID THEY COLLECT THIS INFORMATION??

Aug 03, 2007 14:13     

spywares?
geeg report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

All of you just confessed! You're going to jail!

Aug 03, 2007 14:23     

I will need your addresses and phone numbers, or you can drop that Peer Guardian for a second and the MPAA will be right with you ...
Me report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

How did they get this data?

Aug 03, 2007 14:26     

Are they getting this data from spyware type programs? Its the only logical answer since you can't scan someones computer over the internet without breaking laws. If this is a spyware type of program I'm sure this data is way on the low side, considering most people with significant mp3 numbers will know not to install spyware. I'm more than skeptical.
Robert report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

MP3's?

Aug 03, 2007 14:35     

Feh, I have nearly all my music as high VBA .WMA's for on my Zen Vision: M Guess my 9 gigs of music doesn't count then
al report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

change the average?

Aug 03, 2007 20:16     

I wonder how much the average would change if we excluded the people who only have the stupid MP3s that come with WMP. All the people I know who have any music all have well over 10GB (I'm sadly only at 15 for the moment). But there are lots of people I know out here that are happy with their CD's in their silly space wasting 300 CD players. Even more frightening is that I know people who still have tape collections! And they arent ashamed of the fact! Some people just take a little time to catch up with the rest of us I suppose.

Caeden report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Just Goes to Show you.

Aug 05, 2007 12:31     

That you cannot do anything on your computer without someone else knowing about it. If this is the case, we are all hosed.
Brandon report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Data from Where?

Aug 06, 2007 06:48     

I'm with Robert and geeg, the source of this data is probably more interesting than the actual numbers, however bad they are. Since they are focusing on selling data to advertisers, they are already suspect. 8*|
wpns report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

um... statistics anyone?

Aug 06, 2007 09:32     

Has any of you "did they scan my computer with spyware?" questions ever taken a statistics class? I'm sure they took a representative survey group and scanned their computers with their permission, then extrapolated the results for the rest of the population. No spyware, no hacking, just a little common sense. ;-)
Joe Sutherland report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Of course statistics

Aug 06, 2007 11:48     

Of course I've taken a statistics course, but without a good random sampling (this can't have been a random sample, at best it was a random sample of those who agreed)the data is meaningless.
wpns report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

So the average computer has 3GB of low-quality, gra...

Aug 06, 2007 12:54     

So the average computer has 3GB of low-quality, grainy, distorted, compressed audio on it? I bet the Swedish guy (or maybe Swiss?) who invented the MP3 format is tickled.
thriftstoretee report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

number way too low

Aug 07, 2007 05:35     

i'd assume the number would be a bit higher, i have a measly 180GB archive which keeps growing
uno1 report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

well my collection is pushing 20k tracks...

Aug 07, 2007 08:20     

well my collection is pushing 20k tracks... and they are mostly in 320kbps mp3/wma/ogg depending, they take up about 120gb of space, which isn't all that much, 2 zen vision m 60gbs and a zen vision m 30gb, each with about 10 gb free...
peter report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

N00bs

Aug 07, 2007 12:19     

I have just over a TeraByte (1000GB's for the n00bs) of SD and HD movies, TV shows and Music and appz.
fieldju report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

bah

Aug 07, 2007 16:03     

90 GB of MP3 from my ripped CD collection, using lame 3.9x and EAC and taking the recommended settings from an umentionable invite only high quality torrent site.
mcrex77 report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Well I destroyed the average. LOL

Aug 07, 2007 21:32     

Well Peter I am closing in on 20,000 but that is running over 200 GB of music. I do have a lot of long 2 hour long live dj mixes though so if you break it down with an average song length of 5 mins and my total catalog containing about 3,500 hours of music I have about 42,000 tracks. LOL Me thinks I have to much time on my hands. LOL
biohazard report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

well i'm just as illegal as the rest of you all

Aug 08, 2007 15:43     

i'm currently at 21,433 mp3 tracks totaling 121GB. if you include the 2.138TB (2,138GB) of music videos, high quality wma's, and ripped dvd's, i'm pretty much screwed if any government official were to take a peek at my hard drive. lol so take a seat fieldju, your totals are probably lower than most people out their with highspeed internet. what are you running? 2x500GB hd's? i used to be like you, until i recently received 4x750GB hd's from western digital, they are sweeeet. besides media, i have another 258GB of software installers, 10GB of which is the new Adobe CS3 Master Collection.

Philip report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

I think....

Aug 08, 2007 17:27     

I think the article is a fake cuz you're confessing to the crime!! I'd be on the lookout for a black van parked next to your house. LOL Darkk
Darkk report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Pissing Contest

Aug 29, 2007 13:12     

I'm about where Philip is on accumulated media. Have a few more movies (3,124TB of DIVX) but fewer MP3's (15000 @ 44GB 3000 Napster tracks) and maybe a couple gigs of software installers and what-not. This all just goes to show that you can't stop a determined flood with regulations and lawsuits.
Daniel report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Spend more time listening, and less downloading

Aug 29, 2007 15:31     

It appears as though the majority of these posts are all people focused on how much space they can waste with music they never listen to. I suppose I should release a report that states 90% of users with 10g of mp3s or more, have no idea what kind of music they like. However, they really know which drive manufacturer is their favorite. Click click click, download, download, download. "Must fill hard drive with whatever I can find. If it says mp3, aac, or ogg it must be worth saving whether I listen to it or not. Yes! Almost at maximum capacity!.."

Nick B report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

I half disagree Nick B

Aug 29, 2007 19:32     

Nick B, you are probably halfway correct, but I think some people listen to the majority of their music. Of course you have to vary your listening, but downloading that much is usually a case of "if that song pops into my head and I want to hear it, it is there." Ya dig? My buddy has a huge collection, and we have something different on everyday. There are some of us truly eclectic folk out there.

adolpho report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Aha!

Nov 07, 2007 14:58     

Now we know why the data is so skewed, Daniel has more than 3 petabytes of ripped movies on his system. If included in a survey of one million PC users, none of the rest involved would need to have any illegal content in order to bring the average to 3 gigabytes. Daniel, everyone wants to know how you came across such an incredible storage system. You haven't taken over the Google "cloud" have you?

Josh report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

re:Aha!

Nov 07, 2007 19:59     

I think the comma is there for a non-american way of numbering, like spanish: they use commas where americans use periods, and vice versa.
re:Josh report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

RE: How did they get the information?

Nov 28, 2007 11:36     

It's not spyware. Or rather it IS spyware but it's done with user permission. Look up Comscore online. They pay people to install their "marketware" which reports on their computer usage to the Comscore data dracker network. They then make big bucks mining the data and selling it. Yes, this isn't a random sampling. It's an opt-in sampling group which is not statistically sound but they claim to have corrected the data somehow for statistical variance.

MoreBeer report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0