It seems just recently I paid $300 for a desktop 1.6gb drive

Ahhh, you youngsters. The first computer I ever worked with was a Datpoint mini computer, with an absolutely massive storage capacity of five whole megabytes. (That's hard drive, not RAM -- the RAM was probably in the vicinity of 16K or so.)

That five megabyte hard drive (one fixed and one removable platter, 2.5 MB each) was the size of a two-drawer filing cabinet, cost over $8,000 (in 1976, when $8,000 would buy you a new Mercedes Benz) and was so unreliable that the service man averaged 1.6 visits per month to repair it.

Man, I miss the good old days. Not!

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"