Reprinted from TidBITS#880/21-May-07 with permission.
Copyright (C) 2007, TidBITS. All rights reserved.
http://www.tidbits.com/

Where No Drive Has Gone Before
------------------------------
  by Glenn Fleishman <glenn@tidbits.com>
  article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9001>

  My first computer, purchased in 1979, had 8K of RAM and 8K of ROM,
  BASIC baked in, and no persistent storage. My first hard drive was
  60 MB and cost $600 in 1989. Now you can purchase one terabyte (TB)
  of storage in a single 3.5-inch Hitachi hard drive mechanism for
  about $400.

<http://www.google.com/search?q=%22osi+c1p%22>
<http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/site/en/menuitem.8027a91c954924ae4bda9f30eac4f0a0/>

  It's easy to purchase 1 TB of storage in a single package. LaCie,
  for instance, has offered a 1 TB Big Disk for some time, using two
  500 GB drives in one enclosure; their USB 2.0-interface version
  costs just $350, less than Hitachi's raw drive.

<http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10188>

  But form factor is important for devices that can accept only a
  single hard drive, and in the drives included in basic consumer
  systems. For instance, a digital video recorder like a TiVo could
  store 1,000 hours of programming on a terabyte drive; adding an
  external drive is problematic (though possible) with most DVRs.

  The more storage packed into a single mechanism, the cheaper smaller
  units of storage become as well. Expect the release of the 1 TB
  drive to cause 500 GB drives to drop even further in cost (they're
  already closing in on $100).

<http://www.pricewatch.com/hard_drives/sata_500gb.htm>

  With the ongoing focus on video - particularly high-definition video
  - and the increasing resolution of still cameras, needing a terabyte
  of storage doesn't seem nearly as far fetched as it used to.



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