jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

In 2016, I paid $270 for a 500GB Samsung SSD. Now, I can get a 1TB Samsung SSD for $60. Amazing.

LCD

Yes, computers seem to now be favoring SSD's to hard drives. I'm wondering if they are becoming an extinct technology.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I'm afraid so, and I think prices will be dropping. Computer manufacturers seem to like SSDs.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

That is a typical pattern for technology or products. The affordability of HDDs improved too over time. I don't remember what they cost me individually but but my first PC, a Gateway 2000 in 1993 cost me around $2000 and it had a 420 MB HDD. My current and not all that new PC, a Dell XPS tower cost about $700 and has a 1TB HDD and 32MB RAM. Next PC I will probably buy I want a 512GB SSD + 2x 2TB HDDs RAD linched. This will likely cost about $1600. Right now I am using Windows 10, I started in 1993 with DOS 6.22 + WIN 3.21. Time and tech marches on.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I think my Apple IIe cost around $1.500.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

That was back when? The 1980s?

Shellback Loc: North of Cheyenne Bottoms Wetlands - Kansas

I remember buying a 250MB hard drive for $250 in '95 or '96. WOW, $1 for 1MB - thought it was the greatest deal going at the time...

rlv567 Loc: Baguio City, Philippines

I forget the year, but the first hard drive I saw was when I was working in an HW Computer store in Palm Springs. It was a floor-standing unit, about the size of a washing machine! I don't remember the capacity, but think it was at around 10 MB, priced about $10,000 (but don't hold me to those figures). We sold the IBM-PC, and later the IBM-XT, along with the Epson PC and Compaq. The drives then were 8" floppies, eventually going to 3.5". We also carried Apple, and when it came out, Macintosh (I didn't, because I found the IBM and Epson to be much better, and easier to use). Other computers available around that time included Trash-80, Atari, Commodore, NEC and others. The OS was MS-DOS, CP/M and proprietary. (Later, I worked for Scientific Data Systems - SDS - in Santa Monica. They made a better computer and software, but proprietary, and couldn't keep up with Microsoft.) Communication used telephone modems and printers were dot matrix. While it is estimated that the validity of Moore's Law will end sometime in the 2020s, over the years, advances seem sometimes to be beyond belief in speed, cost and utility. The evolution of hard drives - now SSDs, from floppies has created a revolution in capabilities, and who knows what is next!

Loren - in Beautiful Baguio City

Shellback Loc: North of Cheyenne Bottoms Wetlands - Kansas

I remember those days - I had a Victor 9000 in the early 80's - quite a machine in its day. I learned to code on a Commodore PET in the late 70's - my first introduction to machine language in changing what the main processor would/could do - fun times...

OnDSnap Loc: NE New Jersey

Here's one for ya, my first computer back in 1980 (maybe a couple yrs earlier) I purchased a Hewlitt Packard 286XP with a 20 meg HD and two 5.25 floppy's, a 13" Quad Chrome monitor and an HP wide carriage matrix printer. $5,400.00. The funny thing is, the salesman said never in a hundred years would I fill the 20 meg HD. I wonder if I can get a refund. Dammit he lied to me.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

230GB for $133 in 2006. I know I paid more for less in the past, but that's all I could find.

Indi Loc: L. I., NY, Palm Beach Cty when it's cold.

That’s funny! Same thing happened to me when the HDD crashed on my Gateway. Same price. $250 for a 250MB. At least something is costing less than the “old days.”

BusterCrabbe Loc: Montreal

I paid $700 CDN for a 20 Mb Rodime HD back in 1988 for my Macintosh Plus

elee950021 Loc: New York, NY

My custom photo lab business bought the first HP CD player and writer which with 1X speed that in 1995 cost $995! Writeable CDs cost $5 and if you got an error overrun, you had a useless coffee coaster.

We also used an Apple II+ and upgraded the 48MB memory to state-of-the-art 64MB! This computer, a green monitor with a widebody printer for VisaCalc cost us close to $5K.

Be well! Ed

AirWalter Loc: Tipp City, Ohio

This is nothing new. Prices always come down after things aren't new anymore.