Computer Hardware Costs

The cost of computer hardware has declined radically over the last several decades. By way of illustration, I've found old bills for two items:

• a 20Mb (yes, that's megabytes) SCSI hard drive
• 2 Mb of computer memory

I've determined the current value (in early March, 2010) of the Canadian dollar amounts I spent back then and have calculated what comparable items would cost today, based on the adjusted 1987 cost per megabyte of hard disk space, and on the adjusted 1988 cost per megabyte of RAM.

As can be seen in the tables below, a 500Gb hard drive purchased today would cost nearly $65 million at 1987 costs per megabyte of hard disk space. Similarly, 4Gb of RAM purchased today would cost over $5.5 million at 1988 costs per megabyte of RAM.

Computer Hard Drive

Capacity		Purchase
Description	In Mb.	Date	Base	PST	GST	Total
Rodime Hard Drive	20	11/3/1987	$1,250.00	$87.50	$0.00	$1,337.50

Total in 2010:						$2,297.71
(see http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/rates/inflation_calc.html)

Cost Per Mb.:						$114.89

Cost to Purchase 500Gb drive in 2010
Mb:						500,000
Base:						$57,442,750.00
PST:						$4,595,420.00
GST:						$2,872,137.50
Total:						$64,910,307.50

Computer Memory

Capacity		Purchase
Description	In Mb.	Date	Base	PST	GST	Total
Computer Memory	2	10/19/1988	$1,390.00	$111.20	$0.00	$1,501.20

Total in 2010:						$2,479.03
(see http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/rates/inflation_calc.html)

Cost Per Mb.:						$1,239.52

Cost to Purchase 4Gb of RAM in 2010
Mb:						4,000
Base:						$4,958,060.00
PST:						$396,644.80
GST:						$247,903.00
Total:						$5,602,607.80

Last updated April 12, 2010 8:33:04 AM