hard disk capacity trends 2005
These are the five words that I typed into Google to see what I could find about growing hard disk capacities. One of the articles that I found – Trends in the Development of an Ultra-small Hard Disk For Mobile Terminals – was exactly the type of info that I was looking for. In addition, this paper from IBM provides some very good insight and analysis of the hard disk density trends.

Overall, I am amazed that I am able to buy hard disk storage for ~$1/GB … or less. A quick check at CompUSA on-line will show a number of 160GB-200GB hard disks priced around this number … and they are not a “cheap” store. At other on-line stores the prices are even cheaper. I’m amazed to see this 200GB, 7200RPM Seagate hard disk for $199.99!

Combined with our 4Ghz processors that are coming from Intel this year, computers are continuing to meet and/or exceed the estimates of Moore’s Law. I’m thinking about when exactly I’ll own my first server with more than one ‘terabyte’ of storage? It’s only a few years away … if that.