Solved! How much storage will a web development learner need?

[cb7a1cd0]

I'm planning to learn web development, make projects so that I can apply for jobs.

I currently have a 1 TB hard drive. I still have 650-700 GB of space left on hard drive. I've used it for more than 10000 hrs and the disk health isn't looking great either.

So, I'm switching to SSD.

Every penny counts because we don't make that much income. Thus, we can't be extravagant. While buying 1TB SSD would still be utilized in some way or other, but I need higher return of what I pay(ie utilize sufficiently for web development purposes) Companies give a new laptop if you start working in them (Not to interns). After getting a job, buying laptops won't be that hard although a laptop that serves my purpose will cost 7 months of new dev's salary here.

Here's my software requirements. The storage are just my guesses, your insights would be valuable here.

1) Windows 10/11. It'll take maximum 64 GB.
2) Microsoft Office Professional containing word,doc, ppt, excel. 4 GB
3) Brave browser (Not considering downloads for browser. Downloads can go to hard disk)
4) Chrome browser 100 MB for install, ? for cache?...etc please tell
5) Firefox browser 100MB for install
6) images2pdf softwares At most 1GB size(estimate)
7) cold turkey type softwar/ org emacs (only one) At most 1GB size(estimate)
8) IDE(probably VScode or pycharm whatever supports web development and is easy to use for beginners)
9) Web development installations (for 1 stack like MERN, MEAN etc) Not sure about it
10) Viber/Telegram Downloads (Can be removed regularly on unwanted basis) 2GB but most of it can always be deleted or transferred back to hard drive if they're really important. Or at all install viber outside of SSD.
11) Save codes and notes on Joplin while learning. Notes will contain images+codes+text. Not sure about estimate? They can be printed after some time and delete from laptop.
12) Note taking app on Joplin

My files storage requirements (of current):

1) Important docs 34.7MB
2) Study materials that needs to be saved forever 41.5 GB ( I can instead just keep a name of the book and download it later as they're all downloaded from online. Almost/More than 85% storage can be freed up here)
3) Very important courses downloads 103.16 GB
4) Unimportant courses 206.1 GB (I downloaded them online, It's very less likely that I'm going to use them. They're not very important. But I could need them if a course is really good or if the topic is really tough and I need multiple insights)

In my region, If 1 TB hard drive costs x, then 128GB pen drive costs 0.307x and 256GB SSD 0.538x and 512GB SSD costs 1.153x.

Can you share your ideas about what should I do?

My view:
1) Get 128GB pen drive to store 103.16GB Very Important Courses
2) Buy 256GB SSD. 64GB for OS and 192GB for files.

Would this plan work? Is there better approach to this?Remind of the things that I'm letting go unnoticed at the momet as well.

While I've said this for web development, I really would love information about android/IOS app development setup required (storage only).

I'll ask about RAM later on.

 

[cb7a1cd0]

I should tell that it's full stack web development i.e frontend+backend (With more focus on backend). I'd be learning stacks like MEAN/MERN/Django+sql+react etc.

 

[Shmee]

Depending on what the prices are in your region, I would recommend simply going with a 500GB SSD. At least in the USA, 250GB drives aren't much cheaper than their 500GB counterparts, so 500GB is often a sweet spot these days.

In your case, this should give you enough space on one drive, and keep in mind, internal SATA SSDs are generally more reliable than USB pen drives. Either way though, you will want to make sure anything important is backed up on a separate drive, or multiple, or in the cloud.

Now, I just re-read your post, now, are you saying that 500GB drives are generally more than 1TB drives? Are there other options for 500GB drives, or is competition very limited?

 

[cb7a1cd0]

ig I should get a 512GB internal SSD first. The only headache for me is that 100GB of important courses. If I buy 512GB SSD only, now I've only 400GB(subtracted 100GB) of real space. But ig that'd be more than enough for me. Windows 10+ applications will take 150GB at maximum. I'd still get 250GB of free space. I'd use unimportant media in my current old hard disk. Once it fails, I'd have to get another 1TB external hard disk and store the current 100GB of course(and other important files like this at that time) there. This seems like the best way.

Buying 1TB external hard disk to store 150GB maximum data backup doesn't sound very smart.

Thanks for the information.

 

[Shmee]

The thing about backups, is you want to make ensure some redundancy, more generally better. If 500GB is mostly enough, you would still want to have a reliable drive of some sort, or backup service, just in case, say your laptop is stolen or the new SSD dies or whatever. If most data is able to be re-downloaded, then maybe don't need to back that up, but anything irreplaceable, such as your own work/documents/pictures/etc, should be backed up reliably. If your current drive seems to be failing/degrading, I am not sure I would trust it, even for backups.

 

[cb7a1cd0]

The thing about backups, is you want to make ensure some redundancy, more generally better. If 500GB is mostly enough, you would still want to have a reliable drive of some sort, or backup service, just in case, say your laptop is stolen or the new SSD dies or whatever. If most data is able to be re-downloaded, then maybe don't need to back that up, but anything irreplaceable, such as your own work/documents/pictures/etc, should be backed up reliably. If your current drive seems to be failing/degrading, I am not sure I would trust it, even for backups.

Yes, backups are good but I don't have much requirements for it. That 100GB thing is the only one that needs to be stored carefully. If I need more important files for future, I might get a new external HDD worth 1TB later.

Everything else can be downloaded online for free.

I don't see any justifications now to get a backup drive. I just have 100GB of VIMP files. If these files go over 500GB, 1TB ext HD seems reasonable. But it won't go anytime soon at there.