Today I got my brand-new 1-terabyte (1,000 gigabyte) external hard drive in the mail—bought in order to store and edit the Political Justice footage. I paid about $110 for it, including shipping. I remember a few years ago when I was interning at Channel 10 and they got their first terabyte drive, my boss looked up how much a terabyte would have cost in years gone by. I couldn’t remember those numbers, so out of curiosity, I did a little research and calculated the cost of a terabyte in years past (via Cost of Hard Drive Space):
2004: $1,000
1999: $27,400
1989: $12 million
1984: $80 million
1956: $10 billion
Granted, the very idea of a terabyte would have been ludicrous in 1956, when only one magnetic hard disk existed, with a storage capacity of 5 megabytes and a production cost of $10,000 (in 1956 dollars). Still, hypothetically, a terabyte would have cost $10 billion 53 years ago. Inflation-adjusted, that’s $78.4 trillion—enough to pay for the federal bailout more than six times over.
And now I’ve got two of ’em in my living room.
That is super cool, both that you were able to get one for $110 and the overall acceleration of technology.
Also a little scary: Walmart in Durango sells six (count em, SIX) different models of 1TB hard drive. The Walmart website sells even more of them, almost all of which are sub-$200. Crazy shit, man. This world is insane!