The Cost Versus Capabilities of Personal Computer Memory & Storage
From 1995–2018
The first consumer computer to ever be put on the market was the KENBAK-1 in 1971. Since that first release, computers have become extremely powerful. One of the most exponential developments in computer technology through time has been that of storage and memory. Computers have two types of storage, and this will be a comparison of capabilities and cost between current day computer storage and computer storage in the year 1995 (roughly).
Storage v. Memory
To a non-computer nerd, storage space and memory may seem like the same thing. However, they are in fact very different. The term storage in computer language essentially means hard drive or solid state drive space. When you type an essay, download a video game, or save any kind of file to your PC it takes up hard drive space. Memory, or more often called random access memory (RAM for short), is used differently. When you pull up that file, essay or program that is saved to your hard drive, the RAM is responsible for fetching that file and temporarily remembering the alterations made to the program before you save it again. Think of it this way. You have a desk with a drawer. When you pull a paper out of the drawer (Hard Drive), you typically place it on the desk so you can write on the paper. The RAM is a temporary storage space, like the space on the top of the desk, only allowing you to put paper on the desk as long as there is space to hold it. When you are finished writing on the paper, you put it back in the drawer to save space on top of the desk for things your still working on. The more RAM a computer has, the more programs your computer can juggle at once. This will be an important distinction as we move forward.
Hard Drive (HDD)
In 1995, storage was considered one of the most expensive components of a personal computer. For $300, you could get about 80 megabytes in terms of a hard drive. When you factor in inflation, this number becomes $503. This was considered a standard amount of storage during that time. Today, a western digital 3 terabyte hard drive will run you right around 100 dollars. So if you were to crunch the numbers, a hard drive today will give you 196,608 times more storage per dollar spent. This allows modern day computers to house sophisticated programs that do things never thought imaginable even 20 years ago.
Solid State Drive (SSD)
In the late 80’s, manufacturers came out with the solid state hard drive, or SSD for short. A standard hard drive saves information on what is essentially a tiny CD or disk in a metal box, and when that information is called upon, the hard drive has to rapidly spin the disk using magnets to read the information on it. This makes the hard drive very easy to break when active, and sometimes the data can become corrupted. Solid state drives use semiconductor chips that are less volatile than a standard hard drive, keeping your data safe from corruption. SSD’s are also much faster at bringing up files for the RAM to use, which makes them expensive, even today. It is difficult to compare SSD’s today to those in 1995, simply because SSD’s were far too expensive for consumer use.
Transfer Speeds
When you are moving or copying a file from a thumb drive to your computer’s hard drive, transfer speeds are important. Size isn’t everything in a drive, and the ability to transfer or copy information quickly can be imperative. What’s the point in carrying around a giant backpack with a ton of stuff in it if it takes you forever to find the thing you need at that moment? Transfer speeds are measured in nanoseconds, and they pertain to how fast one hard drive can give or receive information. It is difficult to find accurate information on transfer speeds of hard drives from 1995, but the most accurate measurement available would lead one to believe that hard drives today are 15 to 20 times faster than a hard drive in 1995, like the IBM Microdrive.
In the video above, my computer transfers a file, (Cuphead: one of my favorite games) in about 50 seconds. The file size was 2 gigabytes. For your average computer in 1995, that transfer could take up to 20 minutes, if you even had 2 whole gigabytes to store it on.
Random Access Memory (RAM)
In 1968, a man named Robert Dennard completed the first Random Access Memory unit and patented it. Since then, computers have more memory and processing power than ever thought possible. In 1995, 8 megabytes of memory was considered standard for a personal computer. For this 8 megabytes of RAM, one would be expected to pay about 800 dollars. Adjusted for inflation, this cost today would be over 1300 dollars. Today, 8 gigabytes is standard, although most good laptops carry 16. For 8 gigabytes today (8000 megabytes), you can be expected to pay a measly 180 dollars. Keep in mind that every single megabyte of RAM your getting is hundreds of times faster than a megabyte you’d get in 1995.
Works Cited