When do you decide that a storage device hasn't got enough capacity any more?

[mikeymikec]

I decided not to put this in the storage subforum because I think this probably and usually comes down to a personal feeling judgement rather than anything more consistent and logical. I doubt anyone here waits for the drive to hit capacity

My current conundrum is the data drive in my computer is steadily filling up, a 4TB HDD. I imagine that once I've completely caught up with my current DVD/BR ripping then my storage needs are not going to accelerate as they have done in the last 4 years or so. The drive is currently sitting at about 850GB remaining. I replaced the previous 1TB drive when it was probably down to about 200GB remaining which suggests approximately 20% remaining is a conceivably sensible time, but it seems weird to think that going back a few drives in history and thinking to replace it when there's still so much space remaining seems crazy, but then I suppose it's like that joke about the amount of RAM the first spacecraft needed to go to the moon was something like 4KB, and now Chrome is sitting there using 2GB RAM to show a video of a kitten.

I'm probably fooling myself thinking that now that I've opened this whole DVD/BR ripping can of worms that my storage usage is ever going to slow down, as some day I'm probably going to start ripping my 4K collection to my PC (not just the raw data to some spare HDDs to test the discs actually work).

IIRC Windows will refuse to defrag a HDD when it reaches <15% capacity left, that's the only other factor I can think of including in this question. Do you lot have any kind of system to make the decision by?

 

[lxskllr]

I was literally just thinking about this ½hr ago...



I think it's time for a 2tb ssd. I've been culling files I'm sure I'll never want, but not making much headway. An extra terabyte will last me a long time. I guess it will anyway. I remember wondering how I'd ever fill my new 120gb hd :^D

 

[sdifox]

I just ordered 2 refurbished Ultrastar 14TB, content space would go to 120TB then. They will arrive sometime today to my buddy's place in NYC.

Edit:delivered.

 

[nakedfrog]

When my 2TB drive was approaching 100GB free, and I saw a good deal on a 26TB drive, I went for it.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I use raid for pretty much all raw data storage so the size of an individual drive is less concerning to me, it's more about the array size. As it fills up I will either add drives to grow it, or replace every drive one by one with bigger ones and rebuild, then grow the array. Or even create a new array altogether and migrate data to it. Typically when I'm at under 1TB of space left on an array I will start to consider expanding it. If the drives are small I will usually replace them one by one with larger ones and retire the small ones to backup duty or other misc uses. I still have an array with 2TB drives in operation right now, they have close to 100k hours, so I should probably think about retiring those. I also have 8 drive bays left, so if I'm going to buy more drives I might be tempted to just create another array instead. I have around 40TB or so in total. Probably not much by today's standards but it meets my needs and I just expand as needed.

 

[RossMAN]

How do you all handle this on mobile devices? What's your threshold for when to purge or upgrade?

Are you a data hoarder or you're only using 45GB out of 128GB?

 

[nakedfrog]

How do you all handle this on mobile devices? What's your threshold for when to purge or upgrade?

Are you a data hoarder or you're only using 45GB out of 128GB?

My phone has an SD card slot. When I get low on space I'll probably just delete some of the music I don't listen to as much and move some video files off it.

 

[lxskllr]

I think I have 640gb available on my phone between built in and sdcard. It's about 75% used, but most of it isn't critical. If I start running out of room, I'll delete some media.

 

[sdifox]

How do you all handle this on mobile devices? What's your threshold for when to purge or upgrade?

Are you a data hoarder or you're only using 45GB out of 128GB?

I rotate my music. 203 of 256 used for the SD card.

 

[mikeymikec]

How do you all handle this on mobile devices? What's your threshold for when to purge or upgrade?

Are you a data hoarder or you're only using 45GB out of 128GB?

I've never run out of space or needed to upgrade because of space on a mobile device. My wife however completely ran out of space on her Samsung GS6 mostly due to games and picture-taking. It was a real pain in the neck having to uninstall stuff, clear up caches and unnecessary app data, regain enough space for a threema backup, remove the backup data, etc.

I'm still making do with 64GB internal storage and 64GB MSD, and most of the MSD gets suddenly used up if I dump a bunch of videos to watch in bed temporarily, then freed up again.

 

[RossMAN]

My phone has an SD card slot. When I get low on space I'll probably just delete some of the music I don't listen to as much and move some video files off it.

I think I have 640gb available on my phone between built in and sdcard. It's about 75% used, but most of it isn't critical. If I start running out of room, I'll delete some media.

I rotate my music. 203 of 256 used for the SD card.

What mobile devices do you all use? Google Pixel here.

I've never run out of space or needed to upgrade because of space on a mobile device. My wife however completely ran out of space on her Samsung GS6 mostly due to games and picture-taking. It was a real pain in the neck having to uninstall stuff, clear up caches and unnecessary app data, regain enough space for a threema backup, remove the backup data, etc.

I'm still making do with 64GB internal storage and 64GB MSD, and most of the MSD gets suddenly used up if I dump a bunch of videos to watch in bed temporarily, then freed up again.

What image quality is your wife's mobile set at (original or reduced quality)? My wife and I have ours set at original/high quality, how many times have we printed any of the images? I have a feeling you already know the answer, 0 out of 2000000000 photos taken over the past 10+ years.

 

[lxskllr]

What mobile devices do you all use? Google Pixel here.

Motorola MotoG Power(2024). I also have a Stylus(2021), and a newer Power(2025) available.

 

[sdifox]

What mobile devices do you all use? Google Pixel here.



What image quality is your wife's mobile set at (original or reduced quality)? My wife and I have ours set at original/high quality, how many times have we printed any of the images? I have a feeling you already know the answer, 0 out of 2000000000 photos taken over the past 10+ years.

Moto Stylus 5G 2024. comes with 128GB onboard and I have a 256 sd card

Motorola Moto G Stylus 5G (2024) - Full phone specifications

www.gsmarena.com

 

[nakedfrog]

What mobile devices do you all use? Google Pixel here.



What image quality is your wife's mobile set at (original or reduced quality)? My wife and I have ours set at original/high quality, how many times have we printed any of the images? I have a feeling you already know the answer, 0 out of 2000000000 photos taken over the past 10+ years.

LG G8 ThinQ, 2019 I guess? I got it in 2021.

 

[RossMAN]

Motorola MotoG Power(2024). I also have a Stylus(2021), and a newer Power(2025) available.

That's possibly my favorite bang for your buck cell phone for around $50 (last year on SD), IIRC it has solid mid-tier specs:

128GB base storage
microSD
3.5mm jack
Qi wireless charging
NFC (rare on budget phones)

 

[SKORPI0]

Obviously I would end up buying more when the current one is almost 95% full. DSLR camera, cellphone, and tablet rarely fill up.
And yes I'm a data horder and it's not pron.

 

[dank69]

I store most of my stuff on the internet. Never seems to run out of space.

 

[Chaotic42]

Once I get to 80% or so, I do a cleaning and deduplication. If I get there again, I think about expanding. Unfortunately, storage prices are pretty high - my 8TB drives cost more now than they did years ago when I bought them for my server. I think 36TB of media storage will keep me set for a while.