Hard Drives Now 8¢/GB
Have you seen how far prices have come down on hard drives? Right now, several online retailers are offering a 1 terabyte Seagate Barracuda or Western Digital hard drive for around $80 shipped. That’s 1,000 GB for $80.
Is it time for you to upgrade?
Jeff Gamet is a contributing editor for Design Tools Monthly, the executive summary of graphic design news. He is also the morning editor and reviews editor for The Mac Observer and iPodObserver.com, and contributing writer for Layers Magazine and Photoshop User. He writes the InBrief column for InDesign Magazine, and is the author of “The Designer’s Guide to Mac OS X,” from Peachpit Press
When Jeff isn’t writing about the graphic design world, he’s talking about it on the Design Tools Weekly podcast with co-host Jay Nelson. He also talks about Apple and the Mac world every week on The Mac Observer’s Apple Weekly Report.
Jeff studies, tests and reviews new software and technologies for the Macintosh community as well as the design and print industries. He is a former Pre-press specialist, and has nearly 25 years experience with computer technology. Jeff trains, lectures and consults on techniques for more efficiently using Mac OS X in creative environments throughout the country.
In the rare moments when he can get away from his MacBook Pro, Jeff spends his time climbing and biking in the Colorado mountains.
I began my desktop publishing career in the early nineties. The first Mac I purchased was a Quadra 800, which shipped with a 230 MB internal drive. There was a 500 MB drive option available, but that would have put the cost out of my price range [so would the ‘optional’ internal optical drive]. I then purchased drives ranging from 500 MB to 18 GB [the latter for Classic Mac use], the earliest units being around a buck-per-meg! The bottom line is that ‘storage and performance’ bang-per-buck would probably go unappreciated were it not for my past experiences. SSD costs are out of my range at this time, but eventually even they will become more affordable over time.