The impulse buy, that wasn't really

 Finally biting the bullet, I had undertaken a little review of what backup/archive space would cost at the moment, specifically on devices I owned. Using USB expansion style hard drives started at around AUD$ 32 to AUD$35 per TB (terabyte=1,000,000 megabytes) or 3.2 to 3.5 cents per GB (gigabyte=1000 megabytes), this was still way cheaper than SSD offering or even old fashion magnetic tape.

A driving force is that I will get close to a digital photo collection (including some movies) approaching 5 TB (terabytes) within the near future. However, my free storage capacity across a lot of hard drives was rapidly reducing below 2TB, and that made it difficult to maintain a 3-2-1 style archive/backup (three copies, on two different devices and one off-site). It has already slipped into a 2-1-1 method (2 copies, on one and a bit devices, one often off-site). I’ve got a couple of 2TB drives already in the backup cycle, so I reasoned two more 3 or 4TB drive would allow me to get back on track. Suddenly I started to see the same ads, from the same seller for such a USB hard drive embedded beside YouTube videos & on between photos on Instagram, damn you targeted marketing! 

But I'm sure I mostly ingored these ads. Until in a different electronic store by chance I saw the 4TB drives again but for a higher price.  I casually mentioned I had seen them cheaper and got an instant price match and even a little extra discount, damn again targeted advertising and slick salemanship. I decided quickly I bought two. 

Now to catch up on the important archiving and backing up that was sliping behind. No more excuses.

Prices have come down a little, as capacities have increased but things are relatively similar to my article back in 2018 The Myth that Digital Photography is free.