Friday, January 02, 2009

cheap as chips

When did hard drive storage get so cheap? Feels like only a few months ago that 1Tb was pretty expensive. Now you can get a 1Tb external USB for about $110. That's ridiculous. Backing up has never been so affordable or easy. In 2004, a 1Tb Lacie hard drive would have set you back about $1,195 list price. Not bad progress for 5 years.

5 comments:

plain-jane said...

Does this mean you now have some sort of RAID backup scheme with terabytes of space?

John Tucker said...

$1,1195? Is that engineer math? LOL Just kidding. Yeah, there's really no excuse for not having a backup system now that HD space is so inexpensive.

Unknown said...

Sleep deprived typo math, John :)

$1195 4 years ago. $100 now.

@Jane, I've already got something like that, but this means I can actually back up that RAID backup more easily for some off-site storage.

forkboy said...

And those of us looking into online/offsite backup, we'd be interested in knowing your opinion!

Andreas said...

Exactly as I always say: the storage problem for images is solved for good. HD capacity in total and capacity/$ increase faster than the still-image induced demand, even if you consider the new generation of 20+ mp cameras, at least for everybody but pro wedding shooters like David Ziser :)

Otoh, the recently introduced video feature, if used extensively, changes the whole equation. Use two or three 5DII to cover an event like a wedding, and you've really got a problem, not to mention RED.

But still: for my demand the problem is solved. I can afford to have all my images on disk, and when I run out of space, there will be a new disk for the same price, but with at least 1.5 times the capacity.