This link has been bookmarked by 1 people . It was first bookmarked on 16 Oct 2007, by Matt Kramer.
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16 Oct 07
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A few months back, I was at an event held by Microsoft Research where some of the company’s eggheads were discussing the implications for technology users of rapidly increasing storage capacities for rapidly decreasing costs. Apparently, at Microsoft Research, a favorite concept is that as it becomes common to get a terabyte of capacity, it will also become common for people to overhaul their storage habits. Specifically, they make the point that a terabyte is enough storage to archive audio files for every conversation you will ever have in your life.
For whatever that’s worth, there is no question that great deals on high capacity drives are now upon us, especially if you’re willing to order online. Whether you’re in the market for a new computer, or you want to upgrade a drive, or you want an external drive, unprecedented deals abound.
For example, just this week, Iomega introduced a group of hard drives within its Home Network Hard Drive line with 500GB capacities for $199 each. The company also has a 360GB drive available for $149. Those kinds of prices are what we used to associate with low-capacity external drives. That’s not all, though.
If a terabyte drive represents the holy grail for you, pay attention to a few other recent announcements. Seagate is getting set to ship a set of 1TB drives within its Barracuda line for $399.99 per drive, where the cost-per-gigabyte is almost exactly in line with Iomega’s.If you go for your terabyte drive within a new computer you’re buying, you can get an even better deal. For example, Dell and its subsidiary Alienware have been offering terabyte drives from Hitachi within select PCs, including XPS, Aurora and Area 51 systems, for about $320. That makes the cost-per-gigabyte significantly lower than what Iomega and Seagate are offering.
Meanwhile, there are also some extraordinary deals appearing in external and removable drives. Dell is offering a Western Digital 160GB external hard drive, in its Passport line, for $93. I have found external hard drives to be a very convenient way to share backed up data between home and office computers. As you can see from the photo here, where the WD drive is sitting next to a laptop, it’s about the size of a paperback book.
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