A discovery! I don't need to buy a new laptop in 2022!

The Microsoft Surface Book I bought in 2016 - named Verity - is an excellent machine, and remains an upmarket device. Stylish, robust, fast and very pleasant to use, with a gorgeous touch-enabled screen. And despite a heavy daily workload, it still looks immaculate. It looks like a laptop you might buy today, in 2021.

It has only one issue. It has just 256GB of on-board storage, which isn't enough for my current purposes. I've always wanted more. But back in 2016 I simply couldn't find the money for more memory, such as 512GB. Even buying a 256GB version, which cost me a whopping £1,609 back then, was taking a gamble on running out of cash if a large car, caravan or household bill cropped up in the months ahead. (As indeed turned out to be the case)

I now have only 52GB of storage left on Verity, even after hiving off as much as possible to three external hard drives and an SSD Flash Drive. 

What is taking up the space?

It's mainly my 'most important photo' collection. These are my best or most personally-significant shots. The shots I look at most often, the ones most likely to illustrate a blog post on any subject I'm likely to write about. Presently there are nearly 41,000 of them, an identical collection on both the laptop and my phone, so that each device is a backup for the other. (NB: Large though 41,000 may seem, this isn't by any means my entire Photo Archive. That's stored elsewhere, and is five times larger) 

The 'most important photo' collection is steadily growing. I think it may - with the annual accumulation of new shots, plus the addition of scanned pictures from old photo prints - devour 10GB in 2021, and another 10GB in 2022. Then, with my scanning programme finished, the growth rate should slow to 7GB per year, which is the amount of space the 3,897 'most important shots' for 2020 have taken up. (I'm using that as a guide)

On the basis of these figures, and if I regard 15GB as the minimum working storage needed for the efficient functioning of the laptop, then I can just about stretch my ongoing use of Verity into 2025. 

I will definitely then need to buy a replacement. In 2025 Verity will be nine years old and even if still working well, and looking good, she will be distinctly outmoded. I will have to stump up the equivalent of £2,500 or more to replace her, if I want to buy a new laptop with significant on-board storage. In fact I'll be wanting 1TB at least, and to buy the best Surface Book 4 (or whatever) I may have to raid my savings to the tune of £3,000. Ouch! But then I should be able to afford that by 2025. 

There was however another reason for wanting a new laptop with a big SSD memory. I wanted to ramp up my backup arrangements. 

Ideally, I wanted to have a large-capacity SSD storage device - say 2TB, or even more, possibly powered - and use it not only as the prime offline location for my massive Photo Archive, brought together into one place, but also for regular routine backups for my laptop and phone. That seemed to imply having a new laptop with a lot more space on it, to accommodate everything included in the backup. I'd want to bring it all together into a single folder - say 'General Backup 2022 0901' - and just set the backup in motion while I got on with other stuff, like washing dishes. Then half an hour later - because everything would go so much faster than now - I would disconnect the SSD storage device from the laptop and get on with my day. Job done. And I could do this at home or on holiday. 

But it's just occurred to me that I don't need to buy a large-memory laptop to make such a backup work. I can leave my photos, music, maps and other files where they are, and just route the backup through the laptop, using it as a connecting device between, say, my phone and the SSD storage device. I have two USB sockets on the laptop. One can be used for the input, one for the output. 

As in this picture, where I was - as an experiment - transferring files directly from my phone (at the end of the cable) to a little USB Flash Drive. 

It worked! I didn't first have to transfer those files into the laptop's memory, temporarily filling it up, then (as a separate procedure) transfer them out and onto the Flash Drive. It could be done directly.

I had no idea that one could do this. I'd never tried doing it before. I could have been making backups this way for years past. It had never occurred to me that the laptop could deal with two plugged-in storage devices at the same time, and act merely as a go-between, its own memory not involved. And nothing slowed down - the process was rapid.

Given that nowadays there are several alternatives to USB-A, I'm now wondering whether a brick plugged into the laptop, with an array of sockets on it, some for USB-A, some for USB-C, and some for other things, would work in just the same way. Why wouldn't it?

Another thought: if I can view my 'most important photo' collection better than ever on my new phone's beautiful screen, is it really necessary to keep a duplicate collection on my laptop? Couldn't it be moved to that SSD storage device I've yet to buy? I could still easily view it on Verity's large screen - and add to it - just by connecting the storage device and the laptop. 

Then the laptop's 256GB memory would be ample for all future use.

Now and then, fog clears from my mind and I see a better way to use what I've already got. 

All I have to do is buy a large-capacity SSD storage device sometime in the next two years. Probably not this year - I hear that there is currently a worldwide shortage of SSD components, which is temporarily driving up prices. But maybe 2022 or 2023. It would surely cost me less than £500.

Meanwhile my savings can just accumulate. Although there is an important domestic purchase I might need to make - next post.