Question if you have a NAS

[BonzaiDuck]

This question comes up often. There are some who barely use any storage at all and are baffled by those who use terabytes worth. All I can say is get a clue. If you don't understand the concept of data storage, maybe you don't need a HD at all. Hell, maybe you don't need a computer at all.

Sorry but the OP's question just seems incredibly lame to me.

Your impatience with too-Noobs is depressing your value in offering advice.

A person could get to a point of not bothering to investigate "printed" recommendations for storage space, but simply "intuit" their personal requirements and the requirements of others employing their how-to.

Either way, if you came up in the technology from a time there were 5.25" thin black floppy drives, or when the 800KB versions of the drives and disks captured early enthusiasts . . . 20 MB WD EIDE or SCSI HDDs -- whatever but "pre-IDE," and you had potentially larger storage needs than run-of-the-mill mainstreamers because you taught and created a curriculum of database courses and needed example databases in a real, hands-on networked environment -- the intuition parallels any reading.

The issue about "how much storage is needed" should fold in more information than simply the size of backup files kept off-line. Performance changes as the capacity of HDDs increases to a point where defragmentation and user-access take longer. For an absolute beginning with a simple rule-of-thumb, you have to account for all the files Windows uses, modifies and re-writes. These files have can have a dynamic size, so best to determine the maximum in printed specs and start from there.

So one has to ask about things like "persistent" versus "volatile" files, backup frequency, type of usage (for instance -- a range of files sizes) . . and so on.

Some here -- with my concurrence -- suggested a 50% rule. When you reach 50% of total disk space consumed, you might be planning your next expansion. The expansion would correspond to anticipated needs in the future -- which seem reasonably-anticipated in the present, but can change dramatically for either individuals or organizations with some new type of usage. That's the "uncertainty" factor.

You have options about how you buy digital content -- audio and video entertainment, how you store it, and whether the "online" storage is worth the trouble if you have CDs, DVDs, and BD optical discs.

Personal and small-business needs of modern living, banking and other activities can remain fairly constant and have a slowly growing size, until you add graphic, video and PDF accumulations of digital records. You don't need more than 100 GB and some discipline to keep those files from affecting your other expansion needs very much. A USB-powered external 2.5" laptop accessory might do the trick, maybe with 500GB capacity.

 

[code65536]

4x4TB for 12TB of storage and 4TB of parity resiliency in my NAS (Windows Storage Spaces). It's over half full now. Most of it comes from recording TV shows. There are some shows, like Jeopardy!, that are never available for purchase/rent and that people rarely bother to post online, so my personal recording is the only copy that I can acquire legally or otherwise. At 2GB per episode and one episode each weekday, you can see how collecting just one show can quickly add up.

Also, "adult entertainment".

 

[jhu]

Also, "adult entertainment".

You mean like F1 racing?