The Price of Storage

[rhurst]

I felt it necessary to share my blog entry today:

Funny short story: today, a CMD HD with 80-megabyte storage solution for the Commodore 64/128 just sold for $375 shipped on ebay. That comes to roughly $4800 per gigabyte, with NO manual and NO warranty. I was tempted earlier today at BestBuy for a 1-terabyte storage solution that connects to your home router for one-button backup of your PC and allows for streaming media to my PCs and PS3 for under $200 with local pick-up. That comes to roughly twenty cents per gigabyte, with manual, cables, and a 2-year warranty — more than 24,000x less per gigabyte than CMD HD.

Moral of the story: someone’s junk is someone else’s treasure.

[gklinger]

I suppose a similar calculation could be made regarding processing power and/or RAM with equally disproportionate results. It's really quite amazing and brings to mind the quote from which your sig is paraphrased.

It might be worth pointing out that if functionality rather than nostalgia and/or collecting is one's primary motivator then a uIEC/CF with an attached hard disk would yield a far more reasonable cost per megabyte than a CMD HD. The fact that you can connect a 100+ GB hard disk to a Commodore computer is itself rather hard to fathom. Magic indeed.

[TNT]

click

[rhurst]

... then a uIEC/CF with an attached hard disk would yield a far more reasonable cost per megabyte than a CMD HD.

Clearly, it just had to be collector motivated -- I cannot imagine why any retro-gamer (like myself) would drop that kind of cash when more modern devices like a uIEC solution exist. Cripes, even 1541 Ultimate for its boasted compatibility is far less expensive (I am waiting for II to be released like so many others).

I still find it hard to justify keeping a few real C= floppy drives around, too. except they were paid for (cheaply) and I got original boxes, so they are tucked out of sight / out of mind.

[PaulQ]

Considering that an 80GB hard drive is likely to fail at any given moment in this day and age (unlike a vintage baseball card, coin, vase, or other collectible which can be enjoyed for generations to come), and also considering that, unlike most collectibles (including the Vic 20 and Commodore 64), has absolutely NO cultural relevance whatsoever, I would simply write such a transaction off as someone just wanting something more than any normal person ought to want something. People can become obsessive about obscure stuff like this. If it brings them happiness, then it's a small price to pay. I certainly wouldn't pay that kind of money for this kind of junk, but I've been known to spend considerably more on stuff that others have considered junk, so I can sympathize.