On 2022-04-02 10:18, Savageduck wrote:

> BTW: KLM World Business Class SFO-AMS-CPT return CPT-AMS-SFO was
> $7,578.57 and I can afford that. Economy Plus for the same trip would be
> about $2,000.

I've done Montreal - AMS - Johannesburg - return for about CAD$3500 (J
(business class)) - but that was a long time ago - we booked a lot of
KLM flights and I believe we had pretty good prices for that ... Also
Montreal-LGA/taxi/JFK-Johberg on SA Airlines - return with a fuel stop
at Cape Verde on the westbound leg.

Only problem with the KLM route at the time was a pretty long layover at
AMS both ways.

--
"Mr Speaker, I withdraw my statement that half the cabinet are asses -
half the cabinet are not asses."
-Benjamin Disraeli

On 2022-04-02 12:15, Alfred Molon wrote:
> Am 02.04.2022 um 16:18 schrieb Savageduck:
>> KLM World Business Class SFO-AMS-CPT return CPT-AMS-SFO was $7,578.57
>> and I can afford that. Economy Plus for the same trip would be about
>> $2,000.
>
> Munich to Cape Town return costs 677 Euro (with KLM via AMS; I entered
> 8.6-29.6 in skyscanner). The cheapest flight is 576 Euro (two stops on
> the return leg). Economy class obviously.
>
> Business class costs 2061 Euro (MUC-AMS-CPT, return is CPT-JNB-CDG-MUC).
>
> It's amazing that flights in the USA are so expensive.

1. He's looking at the July price, which is one of the peak periods for
US travelers.

2. SFO-AMS is almost as ling a segment as the AMS-Cape Town

3. Generally American flights are expensive these days due to pent up
demand.

--
"Mr Speaker, I withdraw my statement that half the cabinet are asses -
half the cabinet are not asses."
-Benjamin Disraeli

On 2022-04-02 13:18, Savageduck wrote:

> Here is the actual break down of my KLM cost for my trip:
> <https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-DCwd9gX/0/e50e1d63/X2/i-DCwd9gX-X2.jpg>

Bizarre - usually business class is 100% refundable... (I admit it's
been a while). When KLM were close to oversold in (again J-berg) and
warned me I might be bumped to economy, I walked over to BA and
Lufthansa and both would take me to respective Euro hubs and on to
Montreal if needed - and accept the KLM ticket. Ended up on KLM anyway
(business).

Could do that with Y class tickets as well (FF-Eco) which KLM,
Lufthansa, Air France, etc. would usually accept for a no charge upgrade
to Business.

Essentially Y, J class tickets were no different than cash (in those
days...)

--
"Mr Speaker, I withdraw my statement that half the cabinet are asses -
half the cabinet are not asses."
-Benjamin Disraeli

On Apr 2, 2022, Alan Browne wrote
(in article <3_%1K.510674$mF2.119016@fx11.iad>):

> On 2022-04-02 10:18, Savageduck wrote:
>
> > BTW: KLM World Business Class SFO-AMS-CPT return CPT-AMS-SFO was
> > $7,578.57 and I can afford that. Economy Plus for the same trip would be
> > about $2,000.
>
> I've done Montreal - AMS - Johannesburg - return for about CAD$3500 (J
> (business class)) - but that was a long time ago - we booked a lot of
> KLM flights and I believe we had pretty good prices for that ... Also
> Montreal-LGA/taxi/JFK-Johberg on SA Airlines - return with a fuel stop
> at Cape Verde on the westbound leg.
>
> Only problem with the KLM route at the time was a pretty long layover at
> AMS both ways.

Usually the SFO-AMS KLM flight meant a layover in AMS, so I would get some sleep, & a shower at one of the airport hotels. That has changed for this trip with a 1 hour layover outbound, and 1 hour 30 minutes on the home leg.

--
Regards,
Savageduck

On Apr 2, 2022, Alan Browne wrote
(in article <J302K.220194$41E7.118270@fx37.iad>):

> On 2022-04-02 12:15, Alfred Molon wrote:
> > Am 02.04.2022 um 16:18 schrieb Savageduck:
> > > KLM World Business Class SFO-AMS-CPT return CPT-AMS-SFO was $7,578.57
> > > and I can afford that. Economy Plus for the same trip would be about
> > > $2,000.
> >
> > Munich to Cape Town return costs 677 Euro (with KLM via AMS; I entered
> > 8.6-29.6 in skyscanner). The cheapest flight is 576 Euro (two stops on
> > the return leg). Economy class obviously.
> >
> > Business class costs 2061 Euro (MUC-AMS-CPT, return is CPT-JNB-CDG-MUC).
> >
> > It's amazing that flights in the USA are so expensive.
>
> 1. He's looking at the July price, which is one of the peak periods for
> US travelers.

Peak for US-EU travel, not so much EU to Cape Town in July where it is mid-winter, and off season.
>
> 2. SFO-AMS is almost as ling a segment as the AMS-Cape Town

Yup! SFO-AMS 10 hours 20 minutes; AMS-CPT 11 hours 15 minutes.
>
> 3. Generally American flights are expensive these days due to pent up
> demand.

Demand controls all, even for days of the week.

--
Regards,
Savageduck

On 2/04/2022 11:31 pm, Alfred Molon wrote:
> Am 02.04.2022 um 00:29 schrieb Savageduck:
>> As for travel, after my 2020 trip which resulted in a race to get home
>> because of the C-19 lockdown/shutdown I have been somewhat reluctant
>> to travel again. That said, I have my seat on KLM paid for to test the
>> waters for a trip to South Africa in July. This time business class.
>
> I believe here in Germany a retired police officer wouldn't be able to
> afford a business class flight to South Africa (not out of the pension
> money he gets from the government).

Well, maybe not if he had zero savings ....

geoff

On 3/04/2022 5:46 am, Alan Browne wrote:
> On 2022-04-02 10:18, Savageduck wrote:
>
>> BTW: KLM World Business Class SFO-AMS-CPT return CPT-AMS-SFO was
>> $7,578.57 and I can afford that. Economy Plus for the same trip would
>> be about $2,000.
>
> I've done Montreal - AMS - Johannesburg - return for about CAD$3500 (J
> (business class)) - but that was a long time ago - we booked a lot of
> KLM flights and I believe we had pretty good prices for that ...  Also
> Montreal-LGA/taxi/JFK-Johberg on SA Airlines - return with a fuel stop
> at Cape Verde on the westbound leg.
>
> Only problem with the KLM route at the time was a pretty long layover at
> AMS both ways.
>

I did 17 hours Vancouver to Auckland direct, Premium-Economy, with a
broken shoulder (proximal humuerus not humorous at all), and got a DVT
out of it ;- (

geoff

Am 02.04.2022 um 18:32 schrieb -hh:
> On Saturday, April 2, 2022 at 12:15:13 PM UTC-4, Alfred Molon wrote:
>> Am 02.04.2022 um 16:18 schrieb Savageduck:
>>> KLM World Business Class SFO-AMS-CPT return CPT-AMS-SFO was $7,578.57
>>> and I can afford that. Economy Plus for the same trip would be about
>>> $2,000.
>>
>> Munich to Cape Town return costs 677 Euro (with KLM via AMS; I entered
>> 8.6-29.6 in skyscanner). The cheapest flight is 576 Euro (two stops on
>> the return leg). Economy class obviously.
>>
>> Business class costs 2061 Euro (MUC-AMS-CPT, return is CPT-JNB-CDG-MUC).
>>
>> It's amazing that flights in the USA are so expensive.
>
> You do realize that it is also twice as far, right? And that’s before
> noting that his specific itinerary is more of a dogleg thru EU, so
> it’s closer to 3x the distance.
>
> Likewise, having fewer flight changes will also usually
> have a cost premium too…to do west coast of US all the
> way to SA with only one flight change is pretty impressive.
>
> Plus there’s also factors of demand vs availability, etc:
> Corporations will maximize their profit opportunities

Twice as far, but not four times as far.

In any case, if I were retired I'd probably take that economy class 677
(or 576) Euro flight, instead of a 2000+ Euro flight (and use the money
I save for something else...).

Also, I'd probably not fly in peak season when the prices are highest.

On the other hand, I also can understand if Savageduck, because of the
huge distance, may want to have a more comfortable business class flight.
--
Alfred Molon

Olympus 4/3 and micro 4/3 cameras forum at
https://groups.io/g/myolympus
https://myolympus.org/ photo sharing site

On Apr 2, 2022, geoff wrote
(in article<n8qdnSiH58i9q9T_nZ2dnUU7-TWdnZ2d@giganews.com>):

> On 2/04/2022 11:31 pm, Alfred Molon wrote:
> > Am 02.04.2022 um 00:29 schrieb Savageduck:
> > > As for travel, after my 2020 trip which resulted in a race to get home
> > > because of the C-19 lockdown/shutdown I have been somewhat reluctant
> > > to travel again. That said, I have my seat on KLM paid for to test the
> > > waters for a trip to South Africa in July. This time business class.
> >
> > I believe here in Germany a retired police officer wouldn't be able to
> > afford a business class flight to South Africa (not out of the pension
> > money he gets from the government).
>
> Well, maybe not if he had zero savings ....

I knew that ultimately I was going to be an old fart, so I had a solid retirement plan in place, and working for 25 years before I retired. That included being able to generate income beyond my State (CalPers) pension, home ownership, and most of my big spending done while I was still working. The result has been a retirement income which exceeds my earnings while still working, along with reduced overhead spending leaves me quite comfortable, and able to afford the occasional luxury.

....and still have savings.

--
Regards,
Savageduck

On 2022-04-03 09:44, Savageduck wrote:
> On Apr 2, 2022, geoff wrote
> (in article<n8qdnSiH58i9q9T_nZ2dnUU7-TWdnZ2d@giganews.com>):
>
>> On 2/04/2022 11:31 pm, Alfred Molon wrote:
>>> Am 02.04.2022 um 00:29 schrieb Savageduck:
>>>> As for travel, after my 2020 trip which resulted in a race to get home
>>>> because of the C-19 lockdown/shutdown I have been somewhat reluctant
>>>> to travel again. That said, I have my seat on KLM paid for to test the
>>>> waters for a trip to South Africa in July. This time business class.
>>>
>>> I believe here in Germany a retired police officer wouldn't be able to
>>> afford a business class flight to South Africa (not out of the pension
>>> money he gets from the government).
>>
>> Well, maybe not if he had zero savings ....
>
> I knew that ultimately I was going to be an old fart, so I had a solid retirement plan in place, and working for 25 years before I retired. That included being able to generate income beyond my State (CalPers) pension, home ownership, and most of my big spending done while I was still working. The result has been a retirement income which exceeds my earnings while still working, along with reduced overhead spending leaves me quite comfortable, and able to afford the occasional luxury.
>
> ...and still have savings.

I'll sacrifice myself and allow you to put me in your will....

--
"Mr Speaker, I withdraw my statement that half the cabinet are asses -
half the cabinet are not asses."
-Benjamin Disraeli

On 2022-04-03 15:59:29 +0000, Alan Browne said:

> On 2022-04-03 09:44, Savageduck wrote:
>> On Apr 2, 2022, geoff wrote
>> (in article<n8qdnSiH58i9q9T_nZ2dnUU7-TWdnZ2d@giganews.com>):
>>
>>> On 2/04/2022 11:31 pm, Alfred Molon wrote:
>>>> Am 02.04.2022 um 00:29 schrieb Savageduck:
>>>>> As for travel, after my 2020 trip which resulted in a race to get home
>>>>> because of the C-19 lockdown/shutdown I have been somewhat reluctant
>>>>> to travel again. That said, I have my seat on KLM paid for to test the
>>>>> waters for a trip to South Africa in July. This time business class.
>>>>
>>>> I believe here in Germany a retired police officer wouldn't be able to
>>>> afford a business class flight to South Africa (not out of the pension
>>>> money he gets from the government).
>>>
>>> Well, maybe not if he had zero savings ....
>>
>> I knew that ultimately I was going to be an old fart, so I had a solid
>> retirement plan in place, and working for 25 years before I retired.
>> That included being able to generate income beyond my State (CalPers)
>> pension, home ownership, and most of my big spending done while I was
>> still working. The result has been a retirement income which exceeds my
>> earnings while still working, along with reduced overhead spending
>> leaves me quite comfortable, and able to afford the occasional luxury.
>>
>> ...and still have savings.
>
> I'll sacrifice myself and allow you to put me in your will....

You would probably have to arm wrestle my stepdaughter-from-hell.
--
Regards,
Savageduck

On 2022-04-03 12:41, Savageduck wrote:
> On 2022-04-03 15:59:29 +0000, Alan Browne said:
>
>> On 2022-04-03 09:44, Savageduck wrote:
>>> On Apr 2, 2022, geoff wrote
>>> (in article<n8qdnSiH58i9q9T_nZ2dnUU7-TWdnZ2d@giganews.com>):
>>>
>>>> On 2/04/2022 11:31 pm, Alfred Molon wrote:
>>>>> Am 02.04.2022 um 00:29 schrieb Savageduck:
>>>>>> As for travel, after my 2020 trip which resulted in a race to get
>>>>>> home
>>>>>> because of the C-19 lockdown/shutdown I have been somewhat reluctant
>>>>>> to travel again. That said, I have my seat on KLM paid for to test
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> waters for a trip to South Africa in July. This time business class.
>>>>>
>>>>> I believe here in Germany a retired police officer wouldn't be able to
>>>>> afford a business class flight to South Africa (not out of the pension
>>>>> money he gets from the government).
>>>>
>>>> Well, maybe not if he had zero savings ....
>>>
>>> I knew that ultimately I was going to be an old fart, so I had a
>>> solid retirement plan in place, and working for 25 years before I
>>> retired. That included being able to generate income beyond my State
>>> (CalPers) pension, home ownership, and most of my big spending done
>>> while I was still working. The result has been a retirement income
>>> which exceeds my earnings while still working, along with reduced
>>> overhead spending leaves me quite comfortable, and able to afford the
>>> occasional luxury.
>>>
>>> ...and still have savings.
>>
>> I'll sacrifice myself and allow you to put me in your will....
>
> You would probably have to arm wrestle my stepdaughter-from-hell.

OK.

--
"Mr Speaker, I withdraw my statement that half the cabinet are asses -
half the cabinet are not asses."
-Benjamin Disraeli

On Sunday, 3 April 2022 at 8:21:54 pm UTC+10, Alfred Molon wrote:
> Am 02.04.2022 um 18:32 schrieb -hh:
> > On Saturday, April 2, 2022 at 12:15:13 PM UTC-4, Alfred Molon wrote:
> >> Am 02.04.2022 um 16:18 schrieb Savageduck:
> >>> KLM World Business Class SFO-AMS-CPT return CPT-AMS-SFO was $7,578.57
> >>> and I can afford that. Economy Plus for the same trip would be about
> >>> $2,000.
> >>
> >> Munich to Cape Town return costs 677 Euro (with KLM via AMS; I entered
> >> 8.6-29.6 in skyscanner). The cheapest flight is 576 Euro (two stops on
> >> the return leg). Economy class obviously.
> >>
> >> Business class costs 2061 Euro (MUC-AMS-CPT, return is CPT-JNB-CDG-MUC).
> >>
> >> It's amazing that flights in the USA are so expensive.
> >
> > You do realize that it is also twice as far, right? And that’s before
> > noting that his specific itinerary is more of a dogleg thru EU, so
> > it’s closer to 3x the distance.
> >
> > Likewise, having fewer flight changes will also usually
> > have a cost premium too…to do west coast of US all the
> > way to SA with only one flight change is pretty impressive.
> >
> > Plus there’s also factors of demand vs availability, etc:
> > Corporations will maximize their profit opportunities
> Twice as far, but not four times as far.
>
> In any case, if I were retired I'd probably take that economy class 677
> (or 576) Euro flight, instead of a 2000+ Euro flight (and use the money
> I save for something else...).
>
> Also, I'd probably not fly in peak season when the prices are highest.
>
> On the other hand, I also can understand if Savageduck, because of the
> huge distance, may want to have a more comfortable business class flight.
> --
> Alfred Molon
>

> On the other hand, I also can understand if Savageduck, because of the
> huge distance, may want to have a more comfortable business class flight.

Absolutely. Living at the arse end of the planet and with family in the Europe and Canada, every pre-Covid flight seemed to be a 24hr marathon. Business or at least Economy Plus is the only way to survive if you don't want to spend a week getting over the trip.

Post-Covid, we're planning on using the SKI [1] method of travel until we either a) fall off the perch or b) fall back on the Gov't pension (means tested here in Oz). Current projections thankfully seem to favour (a).
[1] SKI - Spend the Kids' Inheritance.

Cheers,
Magani

On Friday, 1 April 2022 at 20:11:48 UTC+1, -hh wrote:
> On Friday, April 1, 2022 at 11:06:49 AM UTC-4, Whisky-dave wrote:
> > On Thursday, 31 March 2022 at 20:39:11 UTC+1, -hh wrote:
> > > On Thursday, March 31, 2022 at 10:03:58 AM UTC-4, Whisky-dave wrote:
> > > > On Tuesday, 29 March 2022 at 15:10:37 UTC+1, -hh wrote:
> > > > > On Tuesday, March 29, 2022 at 8:24:08 AM UTC-4, Whisky-dave wrote:
> > > > > > On Monday, 28 March 2022 at 18:08:17 UTC+1, Alfred Molon wrote:
> > > > > > > Am 28.03.2022 um 11:31 schrieb Whisky-dave:
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > I can do that using flikr I can access all my photos, not only that I can the same with all my videos
> > > > > > > > via youtube And if friends want to see them I don;t have to invite them to travel accoss
> > > > > > > > from the other side of London or the world.
> > > > > > > <snip>
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Sure but you need a fast Internet connection. We are not there yet (lots
> > > > > > > of places with poor Internet connectivity, even in the USA)
> > > > > >
> > > > > > But I would never live in a place without a fast connection.
> > > > > > Sane as I;d never live in a plaxce without hot/cold running water or electricity.
> > > > >
> > > > > Which can be easier said than done: one could choose a place to live today
> > > > > that the infrastructure is fine for today's demands, but the "10 year" future
> > > > > capability growth risk could be that it becomes inadequate.
> > > >
> > > > True but unlikely. I think living in London I'm far more likely to be able to get the
> > > > fastest speed possible than if I moved to the isle of Skye or the galopogos islands.
> > >
> > > Understood. Point really was to recognize that everyone's current & future conditions
> > > are subject to change, and that there can be some unpleasant surprises at times.
> >
> > Yes but some things become more predictable.
> > It's unlikely that laptops and tablets will have removable internal drives or have a way
> > of changing the graphics card or memory.
> Agreed, the industry trend has become much more "disposable", which is why we have
> these debates on how much to hand-wring about spending extra upfront in order to
> try to 'future-proof' it some.
> > Noticed this with car too, when I was a kid at the weekends you'd see those
> > with cars tinkering about underneath them , I just don't see that anymore.
> Yes, that too .. plus there's been tech changes which have dramatically decreased
> the amount of day-to-day maintenance. I can recall my father "checking the car out"
> for a run over to see the grandparents - a distance of 90 miles. Today, that is less
> than what some people have as their daily commute to work.
> > > For example, awhile back my wife was starting to look at retirement properties and
> > > we found a promising looking place in the countryside... until we noticed that the
> > > listing said "Electricity Available". In looking further into what that meant, it was two
> > > things: the first was that there would be an additional expense to run power lines.
> > > But the second was that it didn't list telephone, internet, or cableTV as "available",
> > > which meant those services weren't available at any cost: one would only be able
> > > to rely on cellular/satellite...which would be a step backwards vs current capability,
> > > and probably worse for future capability growth.
> >
> > That wouldn't suprise me, I'd sort of expect that.
> Coming from a more developed region, it was a "OMG!" surprise of a moment that
> we're glad that we caught, so as to not have it be an unpleasant surprise later.
> > I doubt you'll find many retirment properties in the city centres with easy access
> > to nightclubs, good public transport and a vibrant night life.
> Actually, a more urban with "walkability" and mass transit infrastructure is also
> something we're considering now more. After that scouting trip, I actually found
> an old, small department store (30,000 ft^2) on the main street of a small town
> at a firesale price (US$0.5M) which got me thinking about its possibilities. Basically,
> to take the ground floor and make it small retail shops to rent out, then convert the
> 2nd floor (1st floor in UK) into a condo for us, and convert the top floor into small
> condo rental units for a small local college (assumes zoning approvals).

You really don't want to live below students, or very near them to be honest.

>Plus it had
> a "basement" level with a drive in (yes, indoor) loading dock, so indoor secure parking
> for 5-6 automobiles too. Wife thought I was more than a bit insane. My research found
> that the reason why the building was so cheap was because it needed around US$1M
> for structural stabilization and asbestos removal. A quick look at Zillow today and I
> see that it was sold, fixed up & is now worth $1.75M, so my swag was quite close.
> > > > > But that 500GB SSD wasn't the base standard configuration for an iMac in 2014,
> > > > > so it was a "future-proof" investment that you made back in 2014, to have gotten
> > > > > this far in its useful lifespan.
> > > >
> > > > yes and I couldn't buy a large enough SSD so I could have all my videos, photos,
> > > > music on my internal drive, even in 2014 when I was doing SD & HD.
> > >
> > > At least directly from Apple.
> >
> > Or from anywhere as an internal drive.
>
> Oh, there were SSD's available in 2014, but at roughly $700 for 1TB, they
> weren't commonplace yet.

Well you can get 8TB SSD in a laptop today but I wouldn;t pay that much extra for one.

I'll wait until they come down in price.
>
> <https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/191934-the-best-ssds-of-2014-a-buyers-guide>
> > > > I was future-proofing for about 4 years and that was it.
> > >
> > > A good point, as part of the question is what makes sense for the "how far out"
> > > in terms of futureproof planning. Personally, I look for 5+ years, but with the
> > > caveat that historically this was more for desktops which could have updates.
> >
> > For me the only differnce between a laptop and a desktop is screen size and
> > therefor portability and price.
> Yes, laptops have 'caught up' with desktop performance within the past few years
> for mainstream performance .. there's still a gap in the higher end of power users,
> even as the power user population has become a smaller pond because the tech
> is a "more than enough" for mainstream. Overall, this is effectively why we're now
> considering 5+ year lifecycles instead of just ~3 years (or less: the early days of
> PCs had business cases for performance which justified hardware replacements
> deployments cycles as frequent as every 12-18 months in some industries).

yes I updated every 18 months or so in the past.

> > Now we only store app and OS on the internal drive everything the students do
> > is on networked drive. Everyone of my labs 92 PCs is connected to a network
> > drives, where everything is backup. Probaly a bit expensive for a home users
> > but the principle of not using the intenal drive for users files (unless backed up
> > regually) is a good practice.
> It is, but what I'll point out is that your strategy of consolidation to a server was
> probably motivated more by its productivity gain potential: your touch labor is
> on just a single (& big) node to be maintained for backups, rather than having
> to repeat that work 92 times across 92 (small) discrete nodes. The bang-for-
> the-buck calculus changes when you go from 1:92 to 1:1 (or 1:2, etc) in a home.
> > > > > > ... it's the 'speed' of the processor doing 4K video it takes a few miniutes
> > > > > > per track now. I was so used to doing HD and it'd take <30 seconds.
> > > > >
> > > > > Going from HD to 4K is another illustration of capability growth over time.
> > > >
> > > > Not sure I see the point in goinf to 8K but having just bought a VR heasset can;t
> > > > help but think I'd liike to create content for it.
> > >
> > > Understood; I only used 8K as an example of what a capability growth 'need'
> > > might be; VR is another existing example.
> >
> > Whatever I do I don't plan on keeping the whole of my lifes computing on an internal drive.
> > An internal drive is for immidiate use, & apps/utilities and processing nothing more.
> The observation is that "inventory tracking" is always going to be an overhead cost, and
> a more complex system (eg, multiple storage site) will cost more than a less complex
> system. From this, the question is how is that higher overhead cost being justified today?

Am 04.04.2022 um 01:56 schrieb Magani:
> Living at the arse end of the planet and with family in the Europe and Canada

New Zealand is probably the remotest place on earth. Long flights needed
to get anywhere.
--
Alfred Molon

Olympus 4/3 and micro 4/3 cameras forum at
https://groups.io/g/myolympus
https://myolympus.org/ photo sharing site

On 5/04/2022 4:35 am, Alfred Molon wrote:
> Am 04.04.2022 um 01:56 schrieb Magani:
>> Living at the arse end of the planet and with family in the Europe and
>> Canada
>
> New Zealand is probably the remotest place on earth. Long flights needed
> to get anywhere.

Dunno about that. Oz is only 3 hours away ...

geoff

On Monday, April 4, 2022 at 11:11:38 AM UTC-4, Whisky-dave wrote:
> On Friday, 1 April 2022 at 20:11:48 UTC+1, -hh wrote:
> > On Friday, April 1, 2022 at 11:06:49 AM UTC-4, Whisky-dave wrote:
> > > [etc]
> > > I doubt you'll find many retirment properties in the city centres with easy
> > > access to nightclubs, good public transport and a vibrant night life.
> >
> > Actually, a more urban with "walkability" and mass transit infrastructure is also
> > something we're considering now more. After that scouting trip, I actually found
> > an old, small department store (30,000 ft^2) on the main street of a small town
> > at a firesale price (US$0.5M) which got me thinking about its possibilities. Basically,
> > to take the ground floor and make it small retail shops to rent out, then convert the
> > 2nd floor (1st floor in UK) into a condo for us, and convert the top floor into small
> > condo rental units for a small local college (assumes zoning approvals)..
> >
> You really don't want to live below students, or very near them to be honest.

Yes, that would have been a trade-off. Figured that having the "landlord" be so close
could help with dampening some of it down ... plus as we get older, we're more deaf <g>

> > Oh, there were SSD's available in 2014, but at roughly $700 for 1TB, they
> > weren't commonplace yet.
>
> Well you can get 8TB SSD in a laptop today but I wouldn;t pay that much extra for one.
>
> I'll wait until they come down in price.

Broadly speaking, $100/TB was my break point for more broad SSD adoption. Seems
that there's CoVid rises on prices, as it seems that they've rebounded to ~$140/TB

> > > Whatever I do I don't plan on keeping the whole of my lifes computing on an internal drive.
> > > An internal drive is for immidiate use, & apps/utilities and processing nothing more.
> >
> > The observation is that "inventory tracking" is always going to be an overhead cost, and
> > a more complex system (eg, multiple storage site) will cost more than a less complex
> > system. From this, the question is how is that higher overhead cost being justified today?
>
> There's very little cost if anything. Well I don;t need every start trek episode I've ever
> seen stored on my internal drive. I feel the same way about most photos I have. I really
> don't need to have them on an internal drive, unless I'm working on them in some way.

I'd say that what I've found is that having the photos archive on 'fast' I/O have made
them much more readily accessible, which means I'm more willing to go hit the library
and thus, I'm seeing & enjoying my old stuff more. Been seeing a good amount of stuff
that I'm putting down as "should go reprocess / make new interpretation".

> > Its probably based on media cost, namely (cost per TB of SSD) vs (cost per TB of HDD).
> > The ramifications of this are that once the storage media costs get cheap enough, the
> > cost justification for spending extra overhead for "which closet?" tracking won't be as
> > strong of a justification, which means that it is at risk of being abandoned in favor of
> > a simpler system that incurs lower tracking overhead ... ie, a single destination.
>
> Doubt that will ever happen to the extent that external storage will not be needed.

I see it as that with the rise of SSDs, we wanted their I/O performance gains, so we
were willing to sacrifice local capacity size and go to a two tier storage system.
As SSDs become less expensive, the justification to use HDDs because they're cheap
declines, so our preference should migrate back to employing a single tier storage system.

> > To TL;DR illustrate, consider the following question: if it didn't cost you anything extra
> > to have a single huge internal SSD which completely obviates all need for a second
> > main drive and has no performance hit, would you want to have that, or would you
> > prefer to still have two drives? Why or why not?
>
> Depends on whether I thinking real mode or in fantasy mode.
> If this magic disc went faulty how many months would it take to restore it via the cloud
> or even another drive. So in reality I'd prefer seperate drive a System with important stuff
> and other drives with less important stuff.

There's always trade-offs. For example, the downtime can be close to zero lost time if
one invested in provisioning a hot spare which gets incrementally mirrored nightly for the
system to do a failover to. I've already done this on my cheesegrater, as the cost was
just a 512GB SSD. FWIW, to go cheaper, one could choose to employ a hot-swap HDD
instead of an SSD, and the full capability will be retained, but performance will bog until
such time that one replaces the failed SSD and one mirrors it back over.

> > > > Problem I have is that my current choice of DAM for photography
> > > > (Photos) isn't particularly conducive to fragmenting its storage
> > > > repository into 2+ pieces. Technically, there are some options,
> > > > but I've been admittedly lazy and just thrown an SSD RAID-0 at it.
> > > ...
> > > If I need to watch or find something that is a video more than 4 years ago
> > > I have to get up of my chair walk a few metres collect a 3 TB HD and bring
> > > it back and connect it up.
> > > If I want to see a photo from the 80s I go to flickr and within a few seconds there it is.
> > > I can do this with video too if it's on youtube.
> >
> > Merely illustrating differences in use cases & preferences. I've been lazy (and stuck)
> > on finding a DAM I really like, so its all in one Photos repository which has resided for
> > years on a 4TB RAID-0 (takes up more than half), which enables reasonably responsive
> > startup, searching, & use from one end to the other.
>
> I found this out years ago when using iphoto to store photos and videos and that was
> when my camera could only do SD for 3mins. I gave up storing video files in the iPhotos app.
> So I dragged them out and have a folder called Gig videos each band has it's own folder.
> So I don;t find it hard to find anything although I perhaps could organise it a bit better via
> track titles dates or venues. A friend did ask me if I could find the song where the singers
> microphone went faulty. I asked what song, or what date or what venue and he couldn't
> remember any of the details of that gig so I said no I can't find it then..

Not being able to find something that I know I have is what I find particularly frustrating.
That's why I'm still looking for a better DAM and workflows to compliment.

> >
> > [big snip]
> > > But I really wouldn;t want to totally restore even my 500GB drive via a cloud.
> > > What's wrong with having a local removable drive on USB 3 or with Mac thunderbolt
> > > which is much faster but not something I'd jusify.
> >
> > Using the cloud is because I'm thinking further ahead to when I'm retired and won't have
> > my desk in the office for one of my free 'remote site' backup instances.. Yes, it would
> > be horribly slow to download, but its purpose is to be an option if the house burns down
> > and the bank's safety deposit box (my other off-site) gets flooded the same week.
>
> Well external HDs are still the best bed price wise and practability.
> That could chage in 10 years so why risk investing any any tech that
> might only have a short life span.
> We might have quantauim storge where a drive has virtually no access time..

Sure, and the general trend today is that SSD prices continue to fall, so even though
HDDs are cheaper per TB, one may decide that SSDs are "cheap enough" to use for
one's first tier backup for the benefit of faster system restore times...and/or options
like running one as an available hot swap.

> > > But as you don't seem to know how many shoes you'll have in the future
> > > maybe buy yourself an island somewhere.
> >
> > Eh, I know that SSDs are hovering down to around $100/TB, so I know that
> > whenever I need to grow my current 4TB array to rebuilt it at, say 6TB or 8TB
> > once that becomes needed just isn't going to be a huge hit to the pocketbook
>
> Maybe not, but for me it's needs over wants.

When its for a hobby, its always going to be "needs over wants" <g>

> > > > > > The philosophy of media card capacity trade-offs is a whole 'nuther topic!
> > > > >
> > > > > Not really.
> > > > > you'd never buy a camera hoping it'll still be ok in 10 years time by just adding new lenses.
> > > >
> > > > Depends on what one buys...again. I find my Canon 7D from 2009 to still be fine.
> > > > Granted I also have a 7D Mk2 now too (2014); the main "upgrades" besides lenses
> > > > has been just some bigger CF cards to increase its magazine depth and reduce card swaps.
> > >
> > > So how many photos do you have that must be on an internal drive.
> > A tad over 2TB.
>
> What's that in number of photos ?.

On Tuesday, 5 April 2022 at 14:33:25 UTC+1, -hh wrote:
> On Monday, April 4, 2022 at 11:11:38 AM UTC-4, Whisky-dave wrote:
> > On Friday, 1 April 2022 at 20:11:48 UTC+1, -hh wrote:
> > > On Friday, April 1, 2022 at 11:06:49 AM UTC-4, Whisky-dave wrote:
> > > > [etc]
> > > > I doubt you'll find many retirment properties in the city centres with easy
> > > > access to nightclubs, good public transport and a vibrant night life.
> > >
> > > Actually, a more urban with "walkability" and mass transit infrastructure is also
> > > something we're considering now more. After that scouting trip, I actually found
> > > an old, small department store (30,000 ft^2) on the main street of a small town
> > > at a firesale price (US$0.5M) which got me thinking about its possibilities. Basically,
> > > to take the ground floor and make it small retail shops to rent out, then convert the
> > > 2nd floor (1st floor in UK) into a condo for us, and convert the top floor into small
> > > condo rental units for a small local college (assumes zoning approvals).
> > >
> > You really don't want to live below students, or very near them to be honest.
> Yes, that would have been a trade-off. Figured that having the "landlord" be so close
> could help with dampening some of it down ... plus as we get older, we're more deaf <g>
> > > Oh, there were SSD's available in 2014, but at roughly $700 for 1TB, they
> > > weren't commonplace yet.
> >
> > Well you can get 8TB SSD in a laptop today but I wouldn;t pay that much extra for one.
> >
> > I'll wait until they come down in price.
> Broadly speaking, $100/TB was my break point for more broad SSD adoption. Seems
> that there's CoVid rises on prices, as it seems that they've rebounded to ~$140/TB

But it doesn't aviod the problem and I'm betting you didn;t buy your current computer with
a 4TB internal drive even though you say you need 4TB now.
If you plan to take more photos than you previously took them maybe you need a 20TB drive
in the next 4 years but problem is they don't make a 20TB internal drive today.
So I'm betting you'll always need external storage an internal drive will never be enough.

> > > > Whatever I do I don't plan on keeping the whole of my lifes computing on an internal drive.
> > > > An internal drive is for immidiate use, & apps/utilities and processing nothing more.
> > >
> > > The observation is that "inventory tracking" is always going to be an overhead cost, and
> > > a more complex system (eg, multiple storage site) will cost more than a less complex
> > > system. From this, the question is how is that higher overhead cost being justified today?
> >
> > There's very little cost if anything. Well I don;t need every start trek episode I've ever
> > seen stored on my internal drive. I feel the same way about most photos I have. I really
> > don't need to have them on an internal drive, unless I'm working on them in some way.
> I'd say that what I've found is that having the photos archive on 'fast' I/O have made
> them much more readily accessible, which means I'm more willing to go hit the library
> and thus, I'm seeing & enjoying my old stuff more. Been seeing a good amount of stuff
> that I'm putting down as "should go reprocess / make new interpretation".
> > > Its probably based on media cost, namely (cost per TB of SSD) vs (cost per TB of HDD).
> > > The ramifications of this are that once the storage media costs get cheap enough, the
> > > cost justification for spending extra overhead for "which closet?" tracking won't be as
> > > strong of a justification, which means that it is at risk of being abandoned in favor of
> > > a simpler system that incurs lower tracking overhead ... ie, a single destination.
> >
> > Doubt that will ever happen to the extent that external storage will not be needed.
> I see it as that with the rise of SSDs, we wanted their I/O performance gains, so we
> were willing to sacrifice local capacity size and go to a two tier storage system.

So you don;t think SSDs or the current ones won't get any faster so people will stick to this now
pretty old tech, and the new NVMe SSDs which I'm betting people will have to decide whether
they want ye olde SSDs at $100 per 1TB or the newer faster ones at $300 per TB
and we will have to make the decision just like we did with HDDs ATA, EID, SCSI, 10000RPM, SATA

> As SSDs become less expensive, the justification to use HDDs because they're cheap
> declines, so our preference should migrate back to employing a single tier storage system.

Won't happen, most still want speed over capacity as a priority, and that is what will be worked on
as well as battery life on the laptop. I think they are probably as light and as small as laptops
can get unless they devise a screen that unfolds like the Jame Webb telescope.

> > > To TL;DR illustrate, consider the following question: if it didn't cost you anything extra
> > > to have a single huge internal SSD which completely obviates all need for a second
> > > main drive and has no performance hit, would you want to have that, or would you
> > > prefer to still have two drives? Why or why not?
> >
> > Depends on whether I thinking real mode or in fantasy mode.
> > If this magic disc went faulty how many months would it take to restore it via the cloud
> > or even another drive. So in reality I'd prefer seperate drive a System with important stuff
> > and other drives with less important stuff.
> There's always trade-offs. For example, the downtime can be close to zero lost time if
> one invested in provisioning a hot spare which gets incrementally mirrored nightly for the
> system to do a failover to. I've already done this on my cheesegrater, as the cost was
> just a 512GB SSD. FWIW, to go cheaper, one could choose to employ a hot-swap HDD
> instead of an SSD, and the full capability will be retained, but performance will bog until
> such time that one replaces the failed SSD and one mirrors it back over.

So the same problems still persist.
Even google still use HDDs their data centres mostly use HDDs and I doubt they will go over to SSDs
anytime soon. People are uploading vidoes at a ratev of about 1 petabyte per day or around 400 hours
of new video every miniute.

> > > > > Problem I have is that my current choice of DAM for photography
> > > > > (Photos) isn't particularly conducive to fragmenting its storage
> > > > > repository into 2+ pieces. Technically, there are some options,
> > > > > but I've been admittedly lazy and just thrown an SSD RAID-0 at it..
> > > > ...
> > > > If I need to watch or find something that is a video more than 4 years ago
> > > > I have to get up of my chair walk a few metres collect a 3 TB HD and bring
> > > > it back and connect it up.
> > > > If I want to see a photo from the 80s I go to flickr and within a few seconds there it is.
> > > > I can do this with video too if it's on youtube.
> > >
> > > Merely illustrating differences in use cases & preferences. I've been lazy (and stuck)
> > > on finding a DAM I really like, so its all in one Photos repository which has resided for
> > > years on a 4TB RAID-0 (takes up more than half), which enables reasonably responsive
> > > startup, searching, & use from one end to the other.
> >
> > I found this out years ago when using iphoto to store photos and videos and that was
> > when my camera could only do SD for 3mins. I gave up storing video files in the iPhotos app.
> > So I dragged them out and have a folder called Gig videos each band has it's own folder.
> > So I don;t find it hard to find anything although I perhaps could organise it a bit better via
> > track titles dates or venues. A friend did ask me if I could find the song where the singers
> > microphone went faulty. I asked what song, or what date or what venue and he couldn't
> > remember any of the details of that gig so I said no I can't find it then.
> Not being able to find something that I know I have is what I find particularly frustrating.
> That's why I'm still looking for a better DAM and workflows to compliment..

I'm not sure how that would help , unless I bothered to type in the details at the time.
I doubt there's any current system that could do such a thing for me.
Although we do have AI and noew machine learning courses here that do look at such things
it''s called big data , well it was a couple of years ago but names and terms keep keeps changing
and the buzz words too.
In the last 5 mins have an email about a new facility for 'film' which has just opened on campus.
For multisensory aesthetics, the relationship between mediation and liveness, image augmentation,
ambisonic playback, VR, haptics and more....

On Thursday, April 7, 2022 at 7:24:21 AM UTC-4, Whisky-dave wrote:
> On Tuesday, 5 April 2022 at 14:33:25 UTC+1, -hh wrote:
> > On Monday, April 4, 2022 at 11:11:38 AM UTC-4, Whisky-dave wrote:
> > > On Friday, 1 April 2022 at 20:11:48 UTC+1, -hh wrote:
> > > > On Friday, April 1, 2022 at 11:06:49 AM UTC-4, Whisky-dave wrote:
> > > > > [etc]
> > > > >...
> > > Well you can get 8TB SSD in a laptop today but I wouldn;t pay that much extra for one.
> > >
> > > I'll wait until they come down in price.
> >
> > Broadly speaking, $100/TB was my break point for more broad SSD adoption. Seems
> > that there's CoVid rises on prices, as it seems that they've rebounded to ~$140/TB
>
> But it doesn't aviod the problem and I'm betting you didn;t buy your current computer with
> a 4TB internal drive even though you say you need 4TB now.

Of course not, as my cheesegrater dates from a decade ago (2012) and the PCIe
based SSD was just 256GB at the time which cost IIRC $600-$700 for its OS boot
drive, and the second 'data' drive was 2*2TB HDDs in a RAID-0 for another ~$300.

> If you plan to take more photos than you previously took them maybe you need a 20TB
> drive in the next 4 years but problem is they don't make a 20TB internal drive today.

That's way high, but no matter, because for my current desktop, I could choose to buy
an internal **32TB** SSD today, if I were so inclined:
<https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDACL4M232M/>

If I were content with a 2-spindle HDD RAID-0 performance for a 2nd drive repository
the same as how it was originally configured, its maximum effective size for off-the-shelf
hardware today would be to pick up a pair of 20TB 3.5" HDDs from WD or Seagate. That
would provision a 40TB data repository...and I needed more at that same performance
level, there's still a couple more internal SATA bays to go to more spindles on; 100TB
is within reach on this 2012 hardware (would have to doublecheck the OS, though).

> So I'm betting you'll always need external storage an internal drive will never be enough.

Your argument would be stronger if we're assuming only a laptop configuration,
but even there, there's currently 8TB SSD equipped systems sold, and from a capacity
only perspective, that's honestly adequate for my anticipated needs (see note) for a
good 6+ years.

(note: haven't thought much yet about demands for when I probably inevitably move
up to 4K or higher video ... I'm still very predominantly stills-centric).

> > > Doubt that will ever happen to the extent that external storage will not be needed.
> >
> > I see it as that with the rise of SSDs, we wanted their I/O performance gains, so we
> > were willing to sacrifice local capacity size and go to a two tier storage system.
>
> So you don;t think SSDs or the current ones won't get any faster so people will stick to this now
> pretty old tech, and the new NVMe SSDs which I'm betting people will have to decide whether
> they want ye olde SSDs at $100 per 1TB or the newer faster ones at $300 per TB and we
> will have to make the decision just like we did with HDDs ATA, EID, SCSI, 10000RPM, SATA

Oh, I've already been moving to NVMe based SSDs, as they don't really have all that much
of a cost premium over SATA based SSDs, but give a nice bump in performance.

> > As SSDs become less expensive, the justification to use HDDs because they're cheap
> > declines, so our preference should migrate back to employing a single tier storage system.
>
> Won't happen, most still want speed over capacity as a priority, and that is what will be worked
> on as well as battery life on the laptop. I think they are probably as light and as small as laptops
> can get unless they devise a screen that unfolds like the Jame Webb telescope.

Its a trade-off that depends on use case, for how you note the trend toward small/mobile.

> > There's always trade-offs. For example, the downtime can be close to zero lost time if
> > one invested in provisioning a hot spare which gets incrementally mirrored nightly for the
> > system to do a failover to. I've already done this on my cheesegrater, as the cost was
> > just a 512GB SSD. FWIW, to go cheaper, one could choose to employ a hot-swap HDD
> > instead of an SSD, and the full capability will be retained, but performance will bog until
> > such time that one replaces the failed SSD and one mirrors it back over.
>
> So the same problems still persist.

Regardless of if it is a single- vs multiple- spindle system for the base capabilities
before additions to address backups/etc.

> Even google still use HDDs their data centres mostly use HDDs and I doubt they will
> go over to SSDs anytime soon. People are uploading vidoes at a ratev of about 1
> petabyte per day or around 400 hours of new video every miniute.

Sure, but Google also uses uses SSD in their infrastructure, plus RAM cache too.

It really comes down to paying for the faster I/O where it has the most benefit.
Notionally, if my DAM applications were able to let me select where it stores its
database vs base data, that too would probably be 'good enough' to put just the
former on fast I/O SSD and the base on slower HDDs too. I imagine that I could
dive into the weeds to look to see where each piece is stored and perhaps use
like an alias to move things around, but when the alternative is to throw a couple
of TB of SSDs at the problem for just a couple of hundred dollars, that wins out.

> > > > > > Problem I have is that my current choice of DAM for photography ...
> > >
> > > I found this out years ago when using iphoto to store photos and videos ...
> >
> > Not being able to find something that I know I have is what I find particularly frustrating.
> > That's why I'm still looking for a better DAM and workflows to compliment.
>
> I'm not sure how that would help , unless I bothered to type in the details at the time.
> I doubt there's any current system that could do such a thing for me. Although we
> do have AI and noew machine learning courses here that do look at such things
> it''s called big data , well it was a couple of years ago but names and terms keep
> keeps changing and the buzz words too.

Understood; I've spent hundreds of hours manually tagging images with keywords
and the good news is that 'Big Data' aspects of Machine Learning is starting to
become pretty decent at automating the keywording process.

[snip]

> > > We might have quantauim storge where a drive has virtually no access time.
> > Sure, and the general trend today is that SSD prices continue to fall, so even though
> > HDDs are cheaper per TB, one may decide that SSDs are "cheap enough" to use for
> > one's first tier backup for the benefit of faster system restore times...and/or options
> > like running one as an available hot swap.
>
> Apple had that with Firewire but USB was much cheaper and got faster, and now we have
> 40 GB thunderbold and 10GB ethernet.

> > > > > But as you don't seem to know how many shoes you'll have in the future
> > > > > maybe buy yourself an island somewhere.
> > > >
> > > > Eh, I know that SSDs are hovering down to around $100/TB, so I know that
> > > > whenever I need to grow my current 4TB array to rebuilt it at, say 6TB or 8TB
> > > > once that becomes needed just isn't going to be a huge hit to the pocketbook
> > >
> > > Maybe not, but for me it's needs over wants.
> >
> > When its for a hobby, its always going to be "needs over wants" <g>
>
> then there's overheads like wives, girlfriends, pets that get in the way :-)

> > > > > > > > The philosophy of media card capacity trade-offs is a whole 'nuther topic!
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Not really.
> > > > > > > you'd never buy a camera hoping it'll still be ok in 10 years time by just adding new lenses.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Depends on what one buys...again. I find my Canon 7D from 2009 to still be fine.
> > > > > > Granted I also have a 7D Mk2 now too (2014); the main "upgrades" besides lenses
> > > > > > has been just some bigger CF cards to increase its magazine depth and reduce card swaps.
> > > > >
> > > > > So how many photos do you have that must be on an internal drive.
> > > > A tad over 2TB.
> > >
> > > What's that in number of photos ?.
> > Just queried the system (& Photos crashed afterwards): currently at 109,204.
> > Plus another 20K in old school film that's much less pragmatically accessible.
>
> Well at a rought estimate if you looked at each picture for 10 seconds it'd take you
> about 2 weeks to see them all provided you didn't take any breaks for sleep eating
> or anything else.

On Thursday, 7 April 2022 at 20:53:36 UTC+1, -hh wrote:
> On Thursday, April 7, 2022 at 7:24:21 AM UTC-4, Whisky-dave wrote:
> > On Tuesday, 5 April 2022 at 14:33:25 UTC+1, -hh wrote:
> > > On Monday, April 4, 2022 at 11:11:38 AM UTC-4, Whisky-dave wrote:
> > > > On Friday, 1 April 2022 at 20:11:48 UTC+1, -hh wrote:
> > > > > On Friday, April 1, 2022 at 11:06:49 AM UTC-4, Whisky-dave wrote:
> > > > > > [etc]
> > > > > >...
> > > > Well you can get 8TB SSD in a laptop today but I wouldn;t pay that much extra for one.
> > > >
> > > > I'll wait until they come down in price.
> > >
> > > Broadly speaking, $100/TB was my break point for more broad SSD adoption. Seems
> > > that there's CoVid rises on prices, as it seems that they've rebounded to ~$140/TB
> >
> > But it doesn't aviod the problem and I'm betting you didn;t buy your current computer with
> > a 4TB internal drive even though you say you need 4TB now.
> Of course not, as my cheesegrater dates from a decade ago (2012) and the PCIe
> based SSD was just 256GB at the time which cost IIRC $600-$700 for its OS boot
> drive, and the second 'data' drive was 2*2TB HDDs in a RAID-0 for another ~$300.

Seems risky to me to use RAID-0 unless you keep reqular backups.
Again you've chosen speed of access as more important than space.
Which is what I did, I went for a smaller SSD rather than a larger HDD.
Because I knew I could get pretty cheap and larger HDD in the future.
Like most things the older tech tends to get cheaper when something faster and better arrives,
and that's been going on since paper tape.
So now I only 'plan' for about ~4 years and even then my internal drive will not be classed as my main storage
drive and it;s been that way since my first computer ~1982.
I couldn't store all my games on a single floppy.

> > If you plan to take more photos than you previously took them maybe you need a 20TB
> > drive in the next 4 years but problem is they don't make a 20TB internal drive today.
> That's way high, but no matter, because for my current desktop, I could choose to buy
> an internal **32TB** SSD today, if I were so inclined:
> <https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDACL4M232M/>
>
> If I were content with a 2-spindle HDD RAID-0 performance for a 2nd drive repository
> the same as how it was originally configured, its maximum effective size for off-the-shelf
> hardware today would be to pick up a pair of 20TB 3.5" HDDs from WD or Seagate. That
> would provision a 40TB data repository...and I needed more at that same performance
> level, there's still a couple more internal SATA bays to go to more spindles on; 100TB
> is within reach on this 2012 hardware (would have to doublecheck the OS, though).

Well you're still deciding which is more important speed or space ?.

Personally I'd opt for a new ccomputer and I'm betting a new Mac studio 4 or 8 TB would be much faster
accessing photos whether internally or externally than a new 32TB SSD on the 2012 mac pro.

> > So I'm betting you'll always need external storage an internal drive will never be enough.
> Your argument would be stronger if we're assuming only a laptop configuration,
> but even there, there's currently 8TB SSD equipped systems sold, and from a capacity
> only perspective, that's honestly adequate for my anticipated needs (see note) for a
> good 6+ years.

But they are a bit pricey, and I'd rather buy a 2nd larger monitor than spend so much on a 8TB SSD.
Or get faster internet.

>
> (note: haven't thought much yet about demands for when I probably inevitably move
> up to 4K or higher video ... I'm still very predominantly stills-centric).

I'm not sure how much better and hence larger single still photos will get.
I'm finding jpg file sizes of about 3-5MB plenty. But some like storing everything as RAW ~40MB.
I'm not sure I'll ever need such files to be 1GB.

> > > > Doubt that will ever happen to the extent that external storage will not be needed.
> > >
> > > I see it as that with the rise of SSDs, we wanted their I/O performance gains, so we
> > > were willing to sacrifice local capacity size and go to a two tier storage system.
> >
> > So you don;t think SSDs or the current ones won't get any faster so people will stick to this now
> > pretty old tech, and the new NVMe SSDs which I'm betting people will have to decide whether
> > they want ye olde SSDs at $100 per 1TB or the newer faster ones at $300 per TB and we
> > will have to make the decision just like we did with HDDs ATA, EID, SCSI, 10000RPM, SATA
> Oh, I've already been moving to NVMe based SSDs, as they don't really have all that much
> of a cost premium over SATA based SSDs, but give a nice bump in performance.
> > > As SSDs become less expensive, the justification to use HDDs because they're cheap
> > > declines, so our preference should migrate back to employing a single tier storage system.
> >
> > Won't happen, most still want speed over capacity as a priority, and that is what will be worked
> > on as well as battery life on the laptop. I think they are probably as light and as small as laptops
> > can get unless they devise a screen that unfolds like the Jame Webb telescope.
> Its a trade-off that depends on use case, for how you note the trend toward small/mobile.

I doubt computers will get larger, very few are floor standing where you can mount 8 or 9 drives in
like the old mac quadra 950.
This is my concern with internal drives statement. If I connect up all my Five 3TB drives via USB3
to my 2014 iMac and then placed them all in the same box, I could then say they are internal
but would that be better than yuor current system with the RAID 0, faster ?, more storage capacity.
I don;t know, and that's just 2 years bewteen them.
Is a RAID 0 on a 2021 mac pro faster than and new M1 iMac or macbook with a 2TB internal or external drive. ?

> > > There's always trade-offs. For example, the downtime can be close to zero lost time if
> > > one invested in provisioning a hot spare which gets incrementally mirrored nightly for the
> > > system to do a failover to. I've already done this on my cheesegrater, as the cost was
> > > just a 512GB SSD. FWIW, to go cheaper, one could choose to employ a hot-swap HDD
> > > instead of an SSD, and the full capability will be retained, but performance will bog until
> > > such time that one replaces the failed SSD and one mirrors it back over.
> >
> > So the same problems still persist.
> Regardless of if it is a single- vs multiple- spindle system for the base capabilities
> before additions to address backups/etc.
> > Even google still use HDDs their data centres mostly use HDDs and I doubt they will
> > go over to SSDs anytime soon. People are uploading vidoes at a ratev of about 1
> > petabyte per day or around 400 hours of new video every miniute.
> Sure, but Google also uses uses SSD in their infrastructure, plus RAM cache too.

Yes beause they know niether method is the best all round option.
And for them I doubt there's an 'internal drive'.

> It really comes down to paying for the faster I/O where it has the most benefit.

And presently that seems to be having everything on the same chip CPU, RAM, SSD,
which of course can't be user upgraded.
> Notionally, if my DAM applications were able to let me select where it stores its
> database vs base data, that too would probably be 'good enough' to put just the
> former on fast I/O SSD and the base on slower HDDs too. I imagine that I could
> dive into the weeds to look to see where each piece is stored and perhaps use
> like an alias to move things around, but when the alternative is to throw a couple
> of TB of SSDs at the problem for just a couple of hundred dollars, that wins out.

All depends on how important the time is and what sort of detail you search under.

>
> > > > > > > Problem I have is that my current choice of DAM for photography ...
> > > >
> > > > I found this out years ago when using iphoto to store photos and videos ...
> > >
> > > Not being able to find something that I know I have is what I find particularly frustrating.
> > > That's why I'm still looking for a better DAM and workflows to compliment.
> >
> > I'm not sure how that would help , unless I bothered to type in the details at the time.
> > I doubt there's any current system that could do such a thing for me. Although we
> > do have AI and noew machine learning courses here that do look at such things
> > it''s called big data , well it was a couple of years ago but names and terms keep
> > keeps changing and the buzz words too.
> Understood; I've spent hundreds of hours manually tagging images with keywords
> and the good news is that 'Big Data' aspects of Machine Learning is starting to
> become pretty decent at automating the keywording process.
>
> [snip]
> > > > We might have quantauim storge where a drive has virtually no access time.
> > > Sure, and the general trend today is that SSD prices continue to fall, so even though
> > > HDDs are cheaper per TB, one may decide that SSDs are "cheap enough" to use for
> > > one's first tier backup for the benefit of faster system restore times...and/or options
> > > like running one as an available hot swap.
> >
> > Apple had that with Firewire but USB was much cheaper and got faster, and now we have
> > 40 GB thunderbold and 10GB ethernet.
>
>
> > > > > > But as you don't seem to know how many shoes you'll have in the future
> > > > > > maybe buy yourself an island somewhere.
> > > > >
> > > > > Eh, I know that SSDs are hovering down to around $100/TB, so I know that
> > > > > whenever I need to grow my current 4TB array to rebuilt it at, say 6TB or 8TB
> > > > > once that becomes needed just isn't going to be a huge hit to the pocketbook
> > > >
> > > > Maybe not, but for me it's needs over wants.
> > >
> > > When its for a hobby, its always going to be "needs over wants" <g>
> >
> > then there's overheads like wives, girlfriends, pets that get in the way :-)
>
>
> > > > > > > > > The philosophy of media card capacity trade-offs is a whole 'nuther topic!
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Not really.
> > > > > > > > you'd never buy a camera hoping it'll still be ok in 10 years time by just adding new lenses.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Depends on what one buys...again. I find my Canon 7D from 2009 to still be fine.
> > > > > > > Granted I also have a 7D Mk2 now too (2014); the main "upgrades" besides lenses
> > > > > > > has been just some bigger CF cards to increase its magazine depth and reduce card swaps.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > So how many photos do you have that must be on an internal drive.
> > > > > A tad over 2TB.
> > > >
> > > > What's that in number of photos ?.
> > > Just queried the system (& Photos crashed afterwards): currently at 109,204.
> > > Plus another 20K in old school film that's much less pragmatically accessible.
> >
> > Well at a rought estimate if you looked at each picture for 10 seconds it'd take you
> > about 2 weeks to see them all provided you didn't take any breaks for sleep eating
> > or anything else.
> Sure, if a continuous, sequential slide show of every image was the use case.
> I'd say that what I've found is that I just want to randomly/casually browse.

On 08/04/2022 13:36, Whisky-dave wrote:
> Had a simialr problem this morniung with 2 students.
> We have a fun event where for 10 days we hide 2 little 3D printed bunnies in the lab.
> The idea is that the students have to find them and when they do the first two students
> to find them win an easter egg. So the first 2 studetns that send us a photo of them
> wins the eggs.
> So one student found it first and took a photo, then another student found it.
> But looking at the dates of the emails which were about 1 miniute apart
> the 2nd student must have taken about 30 seconds to add the image attachment & type
> "I've found the bunny" and send it where as the first student to take the photo took about 15 mins
> to attacht the photo and send the email so he lost and the 2nd person to find the bunny won the egg.

Haha! :-D Fun!

What do you think of this little bit of guitar playing, Dave?
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EgxSJwAXqYI

I think it outstanding - but what do I know?!!

On Friday, April 8, 2022 at 8:36:47 AM UTC-4, Whisky-dave wrote:
> On Thursday, 7 April 2022 at 20:53:36 UTC+1, -hh wrote:
> > On Thursday, April 7, 2022 at 7:24:21 AM UTC-4, Whisky-dave wrote:
> > > On Tuesday, 5 April 2022 at 14:33:25 UTC+1, -hh wrote:
> > > > On Monday, April 4, 2022 at 11:11:38 AM UTC-4, Whisky-dave wrote:
> > > > > On Friday, 1 April 2022 at 20:11:48 UTC+1, -hh wrote:
> > > > > > On Friday, April 1, 2022 at 11:06:49 AM UTC-4, Whisky-dave wrote:
> > > > > > > [etc]
> > > > > > >...
> > > > > Well you can get 8TB SSD in a laptop today but I wouldn;t pay that much extra for one.
> > > > >
> > > > > I'll wait until they come down in price.
> > > >
> > > > Broadly speaking, $100/TB was my break point for more broad SSD adoption. Seems
> > > > that there's CoVid rises on prices, as it seems that they've rebounded to ~$140/TB
> > >
> > > But it doesn't aviod the problem and I'm betting you didn;t buy your current computer with
> > > a 4TB internal drive even though you say you need 4TB now.
> > Of course not, as my cheesegrater dates from a decade ago (2012) and the PCIe
> > based SSD was just 256GB at the time which cost IIRC $600-$700 for its OS boot
> > drive, and the second 'data' drive was 2*2TB HDDs in a RAID-0 for another ~$300.
>
> Seems risky to me to use RAID-0 unless you keep reqular backups.

Oh, of course there's regular backups.

> Again you've chosen speed of access as more important than space.
> Which is what I did, I went for a smaller SSD rather than a larger HDD.
> Because I knew I could get pretty cheap and larger HDD in the future.
> Like most things the older tech tends to get cheaper when something
> faster and better arrives, and that's been going on since paper tape.

Yes, that was the trade-off that I made a decade ago regarding SSD vs HDD.
And since then, the SSD price has come down by 90%, which is the enabler for
considering a different solution today, even despite capacity growth demand.

> So now I only 'plan' for about ~4 years ...

I'd be pretty ticked off it a new system didn't go at least 4 years, unless my
use cases dramatically changed.

> > > If you plan to take more photos than you previously took them maybe you need a 20TB
> > > drive in the next 4 years but problem is they don't make a 20TB internal drive today.
> >
> > That's way high, but no matter, because for my current desktop, I could choose to buy
> > an internal **32TB** SSD today, if I were so inclined:
> > <https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDACL4M232M/>
> >
> > If I were content with a 2-spindle HDD RAID-0 performance for a 2nd drive repository
> > the same as how it was originally configured, its maximum effective size for off-the-shelf
> > hardware today would be to pick up a pair of 20TB 3.5" HDDs from WD or Seagate. That
> > would provision a 40TB data repository...and I needed more at that same performance
> > level, there's still a couple more internal SATA bays to go to more spindles on; 100TB
> > is within reach on this 2012 hardware (would have to doublecheck the OS, though).
>
> Well you're still deciding which is more important speed or space ?.

I can have both, if I'm willing to flex the 3rd variable, namely cost.
> Personally I'd opt for a new computer and I'm betting a new Mac studio 4 or 8 TB would be
> much faster accessing photos whether internally or externally than a new 32TB SSD on the
> 2012 mac pro.

Of course it would, which is why I'm contemplating doing just that rather than to drop $6K
into a decade-old desktop. I only mentioned the 32GB SSD card because you said that
that capacity doesn't exist today. Even sticking with what just Apple currently offers on the
Studio, that's 8GB, which is 2x what I have today, and thus adequate for IMO 6+ years of image
portfolio growth.

> > > So I'm betting you'll always need external storage an internal drive will never be enough.
> > Your argument would be stronger if we're assuming only a laptop configuration,
> > but even there, there's currently 8TB SSD equipped systems sold, and from a capacity
> > only perspective, that's honestly adequate for my anticipated needs (see note) for a
> > good 6+ years.
>
> But they are a bit pricey, and I'd rather buy a 2nd larger monitor than spend so much on a 8TB SSD.
> Or get faster internet.

Therein lies the rub on future-proofing: if one spends $X for just what one needs today, skipping
the +$Y (or $Y1) addition for future proofing, then how long does it last until one outgrows it and
starts the cycle again? The optimization math is that of cost minimization, where one compares
the options: (($X)/4 years) vs (($X+$Y)/5 years) vs (($X+$Y1)/6 years) and so on....and the fun
part is the uncertainty in what cost factors are going to affect "lifespan" and by how much.

> > (note: haven't thought much yet about demands for when I probably inevitably move
> > up to 4K or higher video ... I'm still very predominantly stills-centric).
>
> I'm not sure how much better and hence larger single still photos will get.
> I'm finding jpg file sizes of about 3-5MB plenty. But some like storing everything as RAW ~40MB.
> I'm not sure I'll ever need such files to be 1GB.

Oh, my point here is merely that use cases changes are uncertainty risks: the assumptions
which are being used to gage variables like lifespan get tossed out the window, so one
can (should) do a sensitivity analysis on them...again, it can be part of risk-reduction.

> > > Won't happen, most still want speed over capacity as a priority, and that is what will be worked
> > > on as well as battery life on the laptop. I think they are probably as light and as small as laptops
> > > can get unless they devise a screen that unfolds like the Jame Webb telescope.
> >
> > Its a trade-off that depends on use case, for how you note the trend toward small/mobile.
>
> I doubt computers will get larger, very few are floor standing where you can mount 8 or 9 drives in
> like the old mac quadra 950.

Thanks to advances in storage media technology, the use cases for needing that many bays has
gone way down, particularly with the rise of faster I/O protocols such as NVMe which lessens
the bang-for-the-buck of multi-spindled RAID-0 architectures.

> This is my concern with internal drives statement. If I connect up all my Five 3TB drives via USB3
> to my 2014 iMac and then placed them all in the same box, I could then say they are internal
> but would that be better than your current system with the RAID 0, faster ?, more storage capacity.
> I don;t know, and that's just 2 years bewteen them.

Figuratively speaking, we only employ externals because we either couldn't provision it internally,
are lazy, or we have some reason to move/remote that storage (plus combinations of the above).
Overall, the work flow & use cases are going to have a demand signal for "X" amount of storage
of certain parameters (speed, removability, etc). The good news is that technologies such as
Firewire, USB-3, USB-C, Thunderbolt, etc ... have modified the performance hit of being external.

> Is a RAID 0 on a 2021 mac pro faster than and new M1 iMac or macbook with a 2TB internal or external drive. ?

I'd certainly hope that it isn't as fast as an M1's internal SSD! <g>

FWIW, I have done some benchmarking over the years with the Cheesegrater; except for the
last, those were the "as built" condition back in 2012; some approximate values:

PCIe SSD runs 450/600 (R/W) MB/sec
SATA-2 2x2TB HDD RAID-0 runs 250/250 (R/W) MB/sec
USB-C (3a?) external SSD RAID-0 runs 450/600 (R/W) MB/sec

I've not downloaded this utility yet for the M1 mini to personally give it a whirl, but the
reviews I've seen put it at over 2000 / 2500 (R/W) MB/sec. Perception wise, I'd say
that it feels more snappy, but I don't think it is "4x faster" .. would have to do a proper
A-B test with timers to really know for sure (and control for placebo effect -type biases).

> > It really comes down to paying for the faster I/O where it has the most benefit.
>
> And presently that seems to be having everything on the same chip CPU, RAM, SSD,
> which of course can't be user upgraded.

Where the trade-off is upfront costs & useful lifespan.

> > Notionally, if my DAM applications were able to let me select where it stores its
> > database vs base data, that too would probably be 'good enough' to put just the
> > former on fast I/O SSD and the base on slower HDDs too. I imagine that I could
> > dive into the weeds to look to see where each piece is stored and perhaps use
> > like an alias to move things around, but when the alternative is to throw a couple
> > of TB of SSDs at the problem for just a couple of hundred dollars, that wins out.
>
> All depends on how important the time is and what sort of detail you search under.

On Saturday, 9 April 2022 at 00:23:10 UTC+1, David Brooks wrote:
> On 08/04/2022 13:36, Whisky-dave wrote:
> > Had a simialr problem this morniung with 2 students.
> > We have a fun event where for 10 days we hide 2 little 3D printed bunnies in the lab.
> > The idea is that the students have to find them and when they do the first two students
> > to find them win an easter egg. So the first 2 studetns that send us a photo of them
> > wins the eggs.
> > So one student found it first and took a photo, then another student found it.
> > But looking at the dates of the emails which were about 1 miniute apart
> > the 2nd student must have taken about 30 seconds to add the image attachment & type
> > "I've found the bunny" and send it where as the first student to take the photo took about 15 mins
> > to attacht the photo and send the email so he lost and the 2nd person to find the bunny won the egg.
> Haha! :-D Fun!
>
> What do you think of this little bit of guitar playing, Dave?
> https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EgxSJwAXqYI
>
> I think it outstanding - but what do I know?!!

Not really sure I can't play guitar so can't really judge.
Quite a few of my friends play guitar one was even on TOTPs, which was quite funny

On 11/04/2022 10:18, Whisky-dave wrote:
> On Saturday, 9 April 2022 at 00:23:10 UTC+1, David Brooks wrote:
>> On 08/04/2022 13:36, Whisky-dave wrote:
>>> Had a simialr problem this morniung with 2 students.
>>> We have a fun event where for 10 days we hide 2 little 3D printed bunnies in the lab.
>>> The idea is that the students have to find them and when they do the first two students
>>> to find them win an easter egg. So the first 2 studetns that send us a photo of them
>>> wins the eggs.
>>> So one student found it first and took a photo, then another student found it.
>>> But looking at the dates of the emails which were about 1 miniute apart
>>> the 2nd student must have taken about 30 seconds to add the image attachment & type
>>> "I've found the bunny" and send it where as the first student to take the photo took about 15 mins
>>> to attacht the photo and send the email so he lost and the 2nd person to find the bunny won the egg.
>> Haha! :-D Fun!
>>
>> What do you think of this little bit of guitar playing, Dave?
>> https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EgxSJwAXqYI
>>
>> I think it outstanding - but what do I know?!!
>
> Not really sure I can't play guitar so can't really judge.
> Quite a few of my friends play guitar one was even on TOTPs, which was quite funny

I remember you telling me! :-)

On Monday, 11 April 2022 at 02:20:47 UTC+1, -hh wrote:
> On Friday, April 8, 2022 at 8:36:47 AM UTC-4, Whisky-dave wrote:
> > On Thursday, 7 April 2022 at 20:53:36 UTC+1, -hh wrote:
> > > On Thursday, April 7, 2022 at 7:24:21 AM UTC-4, Whisky-dave wrote:
> > > > On Tuesday, 5 April 2022 at 14:33:25 UTC+1, -hh wrote:
> > > > > On Monday, April 4, 2022 at 11:11:38 AM UTC-4, Whisky-dave wrote:
> > > > > > On Friday, 1 April 2022 at 20:11:48 UTC+1, -hh wrote:
> > > > > > > On Friday, April 1, 2022 at 11:06:49 AM UTC-4, Whisky-dave wrote:
> > > > > > > > [etc]
> > > > > > > >...
> > > > > > Well you can get 8TB SSD in a laptop today but I wouldn;t pay that much extra for one.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I'll wait until they come down in price.
> > > > >
> > > > > Broadly speaking, $100/TB was my break point for more broad SSD adoption. Seems
> > > > > that there's CoVid rises on prices, as it seems that they've rebounded to ~$140/TB
> > > >
> > > > But it doesn't aviod the problem and I'm betting you didn;t buy your current computer with
> > > > a 4TB internal drive even though you say you need 4TB now.
> > > Of course not, as my cheesegrater dates from a decade ago (2012) and the PCIe
> > > based SSD was just 256GB at the time which cost IIRC $600-$700 for its OS boot
> > > drive, and the second 'data' drive was 2*2TB HDDs in a RAID-0 for another ~$300.
> >
> > Seems risky to me to use RAID-0 unless you keep reqular backups.
> Oh, of course there's regular backups.

So you do use external storage which is why I can''t understand why you must have everything on an internal drive.
I know you say it's related to speed of access which might increase more with a new processor, graphics card, and
everything else that comes with having everything on the same chip/board. Rather than the speed of the SSD
which is likely to be faster in a new computer than the ten year old one you have.

> > Again you've chosen speed of access as more important than space.
> > Which is what I did, I went for a smaller SSD rather than a larger HDD.
> > Because I knew I could get pretty cheap and larger HDD in the future.
> > Like most things the older tech tends to get cheaper when something
> > faster and better arrives, and that's been going on since paper tape.
> Yes, that was the trade-off that I made a decade ago regarding SSD vs HDD..
> And since then, the SSD price has come down by 90%, which is the enabler for
> considering a different solution today, even despite capacity growth demand.

and there are other things that make computers faster than just the boot 'drive'

>
> > So now I only 'plan' for about ~4 years ...
>
> I'd be pretty ticked off it a new system didn't go at least 4 years, unless my
> use cases dramatically changed.

I don't really know what my use case will be in even 2 years time.
In 2014 I didn't know I'd spend time filming my first 2 goldfinches on a bird feeder and a barking squirrel in 4k
https://youtu.be/3xjMY3h0trY

and a barking squirrel
https://youtu.be/_b1fJbdF97Q

These files were about 35GB in total I don't feel the need to keep the originals and back them up multiple times.
Kept the files I uploaded to youtube about 2GB on my internal drive for now until I need the space.
Which might be at the end of may my next planned gig so will need about 40GB for that
presently have ~70GB free.

Maybe next time I'll be doing 8k or 16k but at the moment thinking of upgrading my connection from 20Mb upload to 36Mb which is about £8 more per month.

> > > > If you plan to take more photos than you previously took them maybe you need a 20TB
> > > > drive in the next 4 years but problem is they don't make a 20TB internal drive today.
> > >
> > > That's way high, but no matter, because for my current desktop, I could choose to buy
> > > an internal **32TB** SSD today, if I were so inclined:
> > > <https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDACL4M232M/>
> > >
> > > If I were content with a 2-spindle HDD RAID-0 performance for a 2nd drive repository
> > > the same as how it was originally configured, its maximum effective size for off-the-shelf
> > > hardware today would be to pick up a pair of 20TB 3.5" HDDs from WD or Seagate. That
> > > would provision a 40TB data repository...and I needed more at that same performance
> > > level, there's still a couple more internal SATA bays to go to more spindles on; 100TB
> > > is within reach on this 2012 hardware (would have to doublecheck the OS, though).
> >
> > Well you're still deciding which is more important speed or space ?.
> I can have both, if I'm willing to flex the 3rd variable, namely cost.

In general the higher spec machine you get will be the most quickly to become outdated is what I have found.
Same with drives of any type, and memory and most things.

>
> > Personally I'd opt for a new computer and I'm betting a new Mac studio 4 or 8 TB would be
> > much faster accessing photos whether internally or externally than a new 32TB SSD on the
> > 2012 mac pro.
> Of course it would, which is why I'm contemplating doing just that rather than to drop $6K
> into a decade-old desktop. I only mentioned the 32GB SSD card because you said that
> that capacity doesn't exist today.

I meant that can be bought with a computer today.

>Even sticking with what just Apple currently offers on the
> Studio, that's 8GB, which is 2x what I have today, and thus adequate for IMO 6+ years of image
> portfolio growth.

I'd have to wonder whether I might be better off spending the money on a faster processor/more cores or
more RAM and use the remaining money and get a thunderbold external drive.

> > > > So I'm betting you'll always need external storage an internal drive will never be enough.
> > > Your argument would be stronger if we're assuming only a laptop configuration,
> > > but even there, there's currently 8TB SSD equipped systems sold, and from a capacity
> > > only perspective, that's honestly adequate for my anticipated needs (see note) for a
> > > good 6+ years.
> >
> > But they are a bit pricey, and I'd rather buy a 2nd larger monitor than spend so much on a 8TB SSD.
> > Or get faster internet.
> Therein lies the rub on future-proofing: if one spends $X for just what one needs today, skipping
> the +$Y (or $Y1) addition for future proofing, then how long does it last until one outgrows it and
> starts the cycle again? The optimization math is that of cost minimization, where one compares
> the options: (($X)/4 years) vs (($X+$Y)/5 years) vs (($X+$Y1)/6 years) and so on....and the fun
> part is the uncertainty in what cost factors are going to affect "lifespan" and by how much.
> > > (note: haven't thought much yet about demands for when I probably inevitably move
> > > up to 4K or higher video ... I'm still very predominantly stills-centric).
> >
> > I'm not sure how much better and hence larger single still photos will get.
> > I'm finding jpg file sizes of about 3-5MB plenty. But some like storing everything as RAW ~40MB.
> > I'm not sure I'll ever need such files to be 1GB.
> Oh, my point here is merely that use cases changes are uncertainty risks: the assumptions
> which are being used to gage variables like lifespan get tossed out the window, so one
> can (should) do a sensitivity analysis on them...again, it can be part of risk-reduction.

For me lifespan is how long I expect the computer to last, Which is more linked the warrenty
rather than how long it will be usable for my uses.
PCs in my lab seem to need replacing afer 3-4 years. We've already had to replace the 1TB HDDs with SSDs
only about £100 each. but 3 years ago this would have been to expensive to buy 100 PCs with internal 1 TB SSDs
otherwise we'd have bought them I assume.

> > > > Won't happen, most still want speed over capacity as a priority, and that is what will be worked
> > > > on as well as battery life on the laptop. I think they are probably as light and as small as laptops
> > > > can get unless they devise a screen that unfolds like the Jame Webb telescope.
> > >
> > > Its a trade-off that depends on use case, for how you note the trend toward small/mobile.
> >
> > I doubt computers will get larger, very few are floor standing where you can mount 8 or 9 drives in
> > like the old mac quadra 950.
> Thanks to advances in storage media technology, the use cases for needing that many bays has
> gone way down, particularly with the rise of faster I/O protocols such as NVMe which lessens
> the bang-for-the-buck of multi-spindled RAID-0 architectures.
> > This is my concern with internal drives statement. If I connect up all my Five 3TB drives via USB3
> > to my 2014 iMac and then placed them all in the same box, I could then say they are internal
> > but would that be better than your current system with the RAID 0, faster ?, more storage capacity.
> > I don;t know, and that's just 2 years bewteen them.
> Figuratively speaking, we only employ externals because we either couldn't provision it internally,
> are lazy, or we have some reason to move/remote that storage (plus combinations of the above).
> Overall, the work flow & use cases are going to have a demand signal for "X" amount of storage
> of certain parameters (speed, removability, etc). The good news is that technologies such as
> Firewire, USB-3, USB-C, Thunderbolt, etc ... have modified the performance hit of being external.
> > Is a RAID 0 on a 2021 mac pro faster than and new M1 iMac or macbook with a 2TB internal or external drive. ?
> I'd certainly hope that it isn't as fast as an M1's internal SSD! <g>
>
> FWIW, I have done some benchmarking over the years with the Cheesegrater; except for the
> last, those were the "as built" condition back in 2012; some approximate values:
>
> PCIe SSD runs 450/600 (R/W) MB/sec
> SATA-2 2x2TB HDD RAID-0 runs 250/250 (R/W) MB/sec
> USB-C (3a?) external SSD RAID-0 runs 450/600 (R/W) MB/sec
>
> I've not downloaded this utility yet for the M1 mini to personally give it a whirl, but the
> reviews I've seen put it at over 2000 / 2500 (R/W) MB/sec. Perception wise, I'd say
> that it feels more snappy, but I don't think it is "4x faster" .. would have to do a proper
> A-B test with timers to really know for sure (and control for placebo effect -type biases).
> > > It really comes down to paying for the faster I/O where it has the most benefit.
> >
> > And presently that seems to be having everything on the same chip CPU, RAM, SSD,
> > which of course can't be user upgraded.
> Where the trade-off is upfront costs & useful lifespan.