News Report #2

Get a 2TB external hard drive for $99.99

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13845_3-20016192-58.html?tag=cnetRiver

This post is a bit unconventional, as I am posting about something for sale rather than an actual report, however, I am very interested in new technology, the concept of space, and price fluctuations.

Moofi, a sister version of Woot, is now offering a 2 Terabyte external hard drive for a mere $99. I am a huge fan of the external hard drive. It is a great way to store my music, pictures, and writing without a complete space capacity overload on my new Mac Book (my baby).  However, 2 WHOLE TERABYTES! The idea of that much space is almost unfathomable, at least for me.

A terabyte is one thousand gigabytes or one trillion bytes, respectively.  Just to put this in laymen’s terms, one terabyte equals about a thousand gigabytes, and one gig can hold about two hundred and fifty songs give or take. That means one terabyte can hold up to two hundred and fifty thousand songs. So when you purchase your 2 TB external hard drive, you have the space capacity to hold up to five hundred thousand pieces of music. Absolutely amazing.

Why do I think this is so incredible? I can actually remember in 2007 when Hitachi produced the first one-terabyte external hard drive. It sold for four hundred dollars, which at the time seemed like a steal to me. Now, in three years, the price is a fourth of its original and the product has twice the capacity. It is amazing how technology has such amazing price fluctuations based on supply vs. demand. I was pricing some electronics last night and the Walkman cd player, a staple in my childhood, was priced at and around $30. I remember when I was growing up; a cheap conventional Walkman could be purchased for $10. Because of the lack of demand, the supply has decreased, and the Walkman is now more expensive.

So really, who has 2 terabytes of data to store? It kind of goes back to our American philosophy that bigger is better and more is good. You may not need more, but you crave more.