Historical Storage Prices - Raw Data

These are the raw data I collected from some Australian PC magazines from 2002-2007.



There are problems with the data:

- these are not 'best retail price' - just what I could find advertised

- inconsistent markup and discount schedule. Couldn't find a single advertiser.

- not same-same. RAM was DDR 3200, then PC133

- Disks. Ignored cache size, and SATA.

- all drives assumed to be 7200rpm

- didn't collect data on 2.5" drives and SCSI/fast drives.

RAM

Year	Size	32	64	128	256	512	1024
2002	512			$117	$238	$510
2003	512			$51	$96	$202
2004	512					$149
2005	1024					$168	$189
2006	1024						$135
2007	1024						$159

Flash

Year	Size		32	64	128	256	512	1024	2048	4096	8192	16384
2002	256		$53	$87	$147	$305
2003	512			$63	$109	$187	$350
2004	1024		$39	$49	$75	$129	$200	$400
2005	1024				$40	$60	$90	$158
2006	2048						$55	$95	$175
2007	4096						$25	$45	$69	$99
MSY.COM	$						$15	$15	$25	$45	$92	$177
	$/Gb						30	15	12.5	11.25	11.5	11.0625

Disk

Year	Size		40	60	80	120	160	250	320	400	500	750
2002	120		$205	$275	$375	$375
2003	160		$165	$190	$220
2004	250		$95		$115	$155	$215
2005	320		$80		$90	$129	$135	$206
2006	500				$75		$109	$155
2007	750				$86		$100	$133	$133	$149	$186	$345

DVD - 50 pieces

Year	Size		4.7 Gb
2002			$135 (guess)
2003			$90
2004			$60
2005			$40
2006	8x		$40
2007	16x		$35

RAM

Year	Best $/Gb	Yr/Yr Ratio
2002	936	2.4375
2003	384	1.2886
2004	298	1.5767
2005	189	1.4000
2006	135	0.8491
2007	159
Avg		1.510373357

Flash

Year	Best $/Gb	Yr/Yr Ratio
2002	1176	1.68
2003	700	1.75
2004	400	2.53164557
2005	158	1.805714286
2006	87.5	3.535353535
2007	24.75	2.237288136
Avg		2.260542678

Disk

Year	Best $/Gb	Yr/Yr Ratio
2002	3.125	1.136363636
2003	2.75	2.129032258
2004	1.291666667	1.567556634
2005	0.824	1.329032258
2006	0.62	1.666666667
2007	0.372
Avg		1.565730291

DVD

Year	Best $/Gb	Yr/Yr Ratio
2002	0.574468085	1.5
2003	0.382978723	1.5
2004	0.255319149	1.5
2005	0.170212766	1
2006	0.170212766	1.142857143
2007	0.14893617
Avg		1.328571429

Summary

The Yr/Yr ratios are used for forward projections.

The 'Est Flash' column uses the current 'best price' (MSY) for flash memory and a Yr/Yr ratio of 3.25.

Flash memory is now very much cheaper than RAM - forward projections not done.

Year	RAM $/Gb	Flash $/Gb	Est Flash $/Gb	Disk$/Gb	DVD $/Gb	Max flash	Max Disk
2002	936.00	1176.00	1176.00	3.13	0.57	256	120
2003	384.00	700.00	700.00	2.75	0.38	512	160
2004	298.00	400.00	400.00	1.29	0.26	1024	250
2005	189.00	158.00	158.00	0.82	0.17	1024	320
2006	135.00	87.50	87.50	0.62	0.17	2048	500
2007	159.00	24.75	11.06	0.37	0.15	4096	750
Yr/Yr ratio		2.26	3.25	1.57	1.33
2008		10.95	3.40	0.24	0.11
2009		4.84	1.05	0.15	0.08
2010		2.14	0.32	0.10	0.06
2011		0.95	0.10	0.06	0.05
2012		0.42	0.03	0.04	0.04