Price of Data Storage Continues to Plummet, Photographers Rejoice

It’s a good time to be a digital photographer — massive hard drives are becoming cheaper than ever, making it so photo-enthusiasts don’t have an excuse for not backing up their data redundantly. Here’s an interesting look at how the price of a Gigabyte of storage has changed over time:

YEAR — Price of a Gigabyte
1981 — $300,000
1987 — $50,000
1990 — $10,000
1994 — $1000
1997 — $100
2000 — $10
2004 — $1
2010 — $0.10

Nowadays, a cheapo flash drive given away for free at expos has more capacity than a $10K computer from 30 years ago. In another decade, you’ll probably be able to consolidate all of the hard drives you have now on a cheapo flash drive of the future (or whatever we’ll be using then)!

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