When will memory be free?
The cost of a gigabyte of computer memory, over time.
1956 | 10 million
1980 | 233,000
1990 | 7,700
2000 | 13.30
2006 | 1
These figures are astonishing and demonstrates the progress that computer technology has made since 1956. Do I think that memory will ever be free? Well no, but only because we need more and more of it. For an example of what the storage requirements of the future may be, take a look at the rest of this article about MyLifeBits, a Microsoft research project.









July 16th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
So do you mean memory (as in Random Access) or hard disk storage?
July 17th, 2007 at 10:24 am
Thanks for stopping by Jon.
In this case I was referring to disk storage. If you want to look at RAM costs you can multiply the above by 50, this will give a good approximation.
For a related look at this area, the Reasons Unbeknownst blog has some interesting commentary on solid state drives.