1. What are the current best prices of disk drives ($/GB) and RAM ($/GB)? How much does it cost for the fastest processor you can find (not counting exotic supercomputers)?
Prices vary over time. Cbeck Newegg.com and memory-man.com for reference. 10K RPM drives cost more. In 2011, $40 buys 500 GB, or $0.08/GB. RAM varies by speed, but $14 buys 1GB. Processors are highly variable and evolving. Sticking with Intel, the high end desktop/games processor is about $1,000. Processors for server cost more.