> Ah, interesting point.  For fun I just threw together some numbers for
> today's media cost to perform a single backup that new 400GB 
> drive in your
> next PC (uncompressed).  I grabbed what looked like 
> relatively cheap media
> prices off of pcconnection.com:
> 
> Media Type # of volumes Approx. Cost
> ---------- ------------ ------------
> Floppy          277,778   $91,444.80
> Zip disk          4,000   $40,000.00
> DLT 8000             10      $699.00
> DDS 3                34      $441.66

Which may be more than that 400GB hard drive will cost once volume
production begins*.

> Pretty scary...

And these don't even include the cost of the Zip/Jaz/DLT drive...

*Based on some pricewatch.com numbers, current ATA hard drives prices
are close to linear up to 60GB at $29.27 + $1.83/GB; the 75GB drives run
about $100 above linear. Assuming that the IBM process triples areal
density at something close to current costs, that puts a 400GB drive at
maybe $60 (more platters & heads) + $0.70 * 400 + $100 premium = $440.

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *