The price of hard-drives...

[Mini-Me]

During an order today, I bought a 500GB Samsung drive, an external case to put it in, and some SATA leads with clips(for stock) for about NZ$200, or about US$100
The drive was only NZ$106 or about US$53... :eek:

I also found in my records, the receipt for the first 20GB Seagate U series 5 hard-drive I bought back when 20GB was a "Large" hard drive, and it cost me NZ$240, or about US$120.

So, currently 500GB can be had for LESS then HALF of what I paid for 20GB about 8-10 years ago. That 500GB represents 25 times the capacity of the 20GB drive, and the price is still cheaper then ever before.

Yeah, and many people still complain about the cost of upgrading their hard-drives... :p

[Paul Komski]

Now apply the same 'algorithms' to RAM and its no less spectacular.

[mjc]

Try this one...

212 MB for around $230 US, not quite 20 yrs ago. That 500 GB drive is over 2000 time the capacity at 1/5th the price.

It was 'top' machine back then...a 486 processor, 8 MB RAM (over $25 per MB), 212 MB hard drive, all sorts of other 'extras' (internal modem, graphics card, sound card and the latest/greatest from Redmond...Win 3)...total price was around $4100.

[classicsoftware]

First PC, Leading Edge Model D:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e6/LeadingEdgeModelD.jpg/180px-LeadingEdgeModelD.jpg

I upgraded the RAM from 512 KB to 640 KB for $150.00.....

[FrankSG]

When my daughter and son-in-law bought a computer in 1990 or 1991 they had a hard drive of about 40 plus MB. The drive went bad after a while and she asked me to get a price on a new drive. They had one with 200 plus MB and one for--I think about 400 MB. I don't remember exactly what the price was but I think it was a little over $200 for the 200MB. I asked her what one she wanted and she said that she didn't know why they would ever need anything as big as a 400MB. It was about that time I bought some more RAM for my computer. The price of the RAM was $50 per MEG. The dealer had some used RAM that he said he would sell for $16 a MEG. So I bought 8 MEG since it was such a good price. How things change.

[Mini-Me]

Now apply the same 'algorithms' to RAM and its no less spectacular.

@ Paul and others - oh yes, I quite agree. :)
I was only using my latest order as an example.

The same can also be said of CPU power and motherboard features etc. Interesting reading the other posts of what older stuff cost at the time. Would love more examples!!! :)

[jlreich]

Ten years ago my wife had a 3.2GB HDD that cost over $250 when new. You can now get 1.5TB for $130. The drive was split in half with the first half only about 20% filled and the second half completely empty. I now have games that would fill that drive three times over just to install it. I have a 16GB thumbdrive I carry in my pocket that cost $17.

Technology continues marching on and on. Thinking about what we had even just five years ago compared to now makes me excited about what we will have in five years to come.

[saphalline]

Would love more examples!!!20 years ago, how much would you have paid for the latest 3D vid card? Nothing, because they didn't exist! :p

Hardware-based 3D acceleration wasn't invented until 1996, by 3dfx. The original Voodoo (1997) was a 4MB (EDO!!) 3D accelerator that only fit into a PCI slot and required a special connection to a 2D vid card. It couldn't even create its own textures! :eek: As of right now, one of the top GPU's contains 1.4 billion transistors!

Nothing has ever moved as fast as the youthful graphics hardware industry. Nothing.

[mjc]

Talking about thumbdrives...for some reason I don't like paying more than about $10 or so for one. My first $10 was 512 KB a couple of years back, then it was 1 G, now I'm looking for an 8 G for $10...although 16 G for $17 looks pretty darn nice. (Actually what I would really like is an 8G CompactFlash card for cheap...I've got an Ipod mini that I'm itching to mod).

[FrankSG]

I have a 16GB thumbdrive I carry in my pocket that cost $17.


I have an 8 GIG thumb drive and I think I paid $39 for it. I'd like to get a bigger one. Who do you think has the best price on them

[saphalline]

I picked up an OCZ Rally2 16GB recently for $30 or so. High performance and very durable - just what I need out of a flash drive. :D It replaced my 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, and 4GB flash drives! Haha!

Now I just need more data to put on it! :eek:

[jlreich]

I have an 8 GIG thumb drive and I think I paid $39 for it. I'd like to get a bigger one. Who do you think has the best price on them
Newegg of course (http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=522&name=USB-Flash-Drives). :p

The Corsair Flash Voyager 16GB I have I found on sale one day for $16.99 after $10 MIR and free shipping. Even if you don't bother with the MIR it was still a great price. Heck, the Patriot 8GB drive I have was still enough, but for the price I couldn't pass it up.