So, I built my computer with guidance from this website in 2011. I have upgraded different components here or there. Overall, it is still performing well, but I am just about out of HD space. I recently consulted my technically inclined nephews (I am getting old) regarding whether it was time to upgrade my entire computer or just add more memory and their thought was to wait another year or two as DDR5 comes out more completely and pricing come down on NVMe memory.

Assuming I stay with my current computer, the question gets to be how to expand my memory. I just checked and the 4 bays for HDs are filled (3 HDs and 1 SSD). The computer only has two USB 3.0 (yep, so old they still called it USB 3.0) connections. I tend to use 300-500 GB of memory per year for photos.

So, I am considering the following:
  1. Go to an external HD for my photos for 2021+ (until I get a new computer)
  2. Go to an external SSD (I am thinking the speed will only be marginally better as the USB 3.0 is likely limiting to ~500 MB/sec)
  3. Buy a large new HD and transfer information from one or more of the existing HDs over to it (~4 TB between the three). So I could do a WD Black 6 TB and still have a couple of years worth of room on it.
  4. Replace my existing 256 GB SSD (currently used for software, but getting maxed out) with a new 2 TB SSD, run software and 2021+ memory off of it. Biggest issue where is I would likely need to re-set up the Windows environment. While that could be a good thing, it would take up some time.


I have a dedicated external HD already that is my real-time back up. My other USB 3.0 port is dedicated to my card reader, but I figure I could get a USB hub and run my backup and card reader off it and have a dedicated port for the external drive I would be working off of.

As I sit here, I am liking option 2. Minimal work, perhaps slightly faster speeds and when I travel, I could also take it with me knowing that if I lost it somehow, I would still have the backup on my external HD.

Thoughts?