07 REFERENCESTopic dossier

Storage and Backup Planning

Count the data, copies, headroom, and recovery paths separately before buying another drive.

Start with the question.

Plan device capacity, working storage, independent backups, file-transfer time, and SSD or hard-drive roles using explicit assumptions.

Plan device or drive capacity from current data, photo and video assumptions, working headroom, growth, and the number of independent copies.

Turn the familiar three-copy, two-media, one-offsite convention into a testable personal backup system that survives deletion and ransomware.

Estimate storage and transfer needs from resolution, compression, bit depth, frame rate, bitrate, duration, and decimal versus binary units.

Choose solid-state or hard-disk storage by workload, capacity, shock exposure, performance, failure mode, sanitization, and backup role.

Use built-in Windows and macOS storage views to identify large categories, clean supported temporary data, and protect system and personal files.

Plan working photo and video data, independent copies, and headroom without hiding file-size assumptions.

Estimate copy time from decimal file size and observed sustained throughput rather than interface marketing speed.

GLOSSARYWorking vocabulary

Gigabyte: One billion bytes in decimal storage labeling.
Gibibyte: 1,073,741,824 bytes in binary measurement.
Throughput: The observed rate of useful data transfer through the complete path.