Today I am backing up the files for a client that has sold his business and needs all of the old templates from our years of working together.
Digging through my files randomly placed across my hard drives like a kid with a messy room i find so many files I have not seen since there creation. This little play in painting more of just a digital scribble is one such example of a file found across the many layers of files as they go from computer to computer copied drive to drive. Hidden away as drives keep getting cheaper and it is easy to just copy the files to the next instead of spending the time to organize the files...
This last drive I got on Newegg.com a 1tb drive for $43 with free shipping. The clients files all together added up to 280gb but the 1tb drive is the smallest you can get for that price.
Rewind to 1993 and I sit in the house of my Old buddy Bob Bowman a retired PG&E guy that was my first Computer Mentor. Bob said he just bought a 1GB hard drive for $1,200. In amazement I say "What are you going to do with all that space?" He said make more files...
From that time forward I have watched the price drop and the amount of files I can make increase. To put it into perspective my project files for this client are 2GB to 9GB for each project. When you include the Template files the photo assets the print files and all of the proofs that go into each Vehicle Wrap Design project. I see how back in that day the work that I do now was not even possible. So lets look at each project to store back then if 1GB cost $1,200 then one project would cost up to 9 times that or $10,800 in hard drive space just to store one project.
Designing vehicles at full scale also gets easier over time. The computer costs go down each year to the point where I am able to build a complete new PC for the price of one wrap design that is able to do the work needed. And what amazes more is that it could all be done on a tablet now. I continue to use a PC as I also use it to game and to mine crypto.
This brings me to a new point the computer now can pay for itself. With mining the returns are small but they add up. My hardware is not new it is 3 years old at this point some parts have be replaced and upgraded so my newest part is only 6 months old. The power supply went out when @rkz and I attempted to run 2 graphics cards that required more power than the power supply could handle and poof the magic smoke left. So the mining payed for the new power supply. And it is still making small payback to build the next part of the system. I have the second card on loan to @rkz to game with and mine in our pool. We have 11 cards now in our pool and have some fun plans to grow this pool. So at this point I am starting to see how this will pay forward all my future hardware.