Predictions for 2007 from Michael S. Hart: $250 Terabytes
- From: Michael Hart <hart@[redacted]>
- Subject: Predictions for 2007 from Michael S. Hart: $250 Terabytes
- Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2006 08:47:09 -0800 (PST)
Predictions for 2007 from Michael S. Hart: $250 Terabytes
And. . .$500 Laptops that come with a terabyte of backup drive!!!
Press Release: Effective December 5, 2006
You May Never Have To Delete Another File Again. . .Forever!!!
In terms of computers, the biggest prediction for the coming year
is that terabytes will fall below $250 by the end of 2007 and the
combination of a new laptop with a terabyte will fall under $500.
Last year at this time terabytes were $440 and just two weeks ago
I bought one for $320, so it should hardly be a surprise if price
trends continue below $250.
The cheapest "Cyber Monday" laptops were already down to $250 for
2006, but obviously most people aren't going to camp out in front
of stores to get such prices, so I am inflating that price to the
same $320 for the price of the cheapest laptops just to make sure
the prices I am quoting and predicting will fall into the reality
levels of most of our readers.
However, given a terabyte for $320, and a laptop for $320, and an
enclosure for the terabyte for $320, we ended up with a potential
terabyte plus system for $750.
Next year it might come down to a trend no one has mentioned, the
price of a terabyte will likely fall below the price of computers
the terabyte is purchased to run with!!!
Ever since my first hard drive was purchases in 1979 for $3,000 a
set of hard drives, and I have always recommended TWO hard drives
for any system, the price of a good pair of drives and controller
has rivalled the cost of the computer they ran on.
However, drives prices are dropping faster than computer prices--
something not mentioned much in the world of punditry.
And I will stick my neck out even further here; drive prices are
going to continue to fall faster than computer prices!
New hard drive technology is on the horizon for ever larger hard
drives in terms of capacities with ever smaller requirements for
space and power, at costs that will continue to fall.
This next generation of drives will allow for hundreds of gig in
iPods and the like, even in cell-phones, while the prices of the
iPods and cell-phones won't have to increase to support them.
The following generation of drives after that will allow for one
to carry an entire terabyte in an iPod or phone!!!
By the way, well before all this happens, more than half a world
will have cell-phones, see my next article for details.