[chx]

> I vividly recall someone bringing a 700MB hard drive back from a local computer store. It cost an astonishingly paltry 700 quid or thereabouts.

I ... do not know. That sounds very low. Look at https://jcmit.net/diskprice.htm and note the pound was 1.8-ish around this time so the price should have been well above 1000 pounds even in early 90s. We are talking of a 5.25" full height drive, here's an 1987 model http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/maxtor/MXT8760E.pdf rare in personal computers, it was definitely for workstations / servers.