A Photographer Spent $20K on Drives, Then Used AI to Save 1000’s

This as-told-to essay relies on a dialog with Allen Cooley, photographer, director, and founding father of Allen Cooley Photography, a industrial, magnificence, and portrait studio based mostly in Atlanta, Georgia. The dialog has been edited for size and readability.

I’ve been working professionally as a photographer since about 2006, and for many of my profession, I barely had to consider the value of onerous drives. They had been a fundamental value of doing enterprise.

Now, I’ve to be strategic about each drive I purchase.

I began noticing a spike in onerous drive costs towards the tip of 2025. When I went again by way of my receipts, I discovered that I’d paid $400 for a 4-terabyte drive in 2022. Today, a comparable drive prices round $1,200.

When I tallied up what I’d paid in 2025 for drives, it was over $20,000. That’s why I finished shopping for them totally this yr.

Luckily, I’ve accrued a whole bunch of onerous drives over my profession. Every new job, I’d merely purchase a number of extra. So, 20 years and 1000’s of jobs later, I’ve turn out to be one thing of a hard-drive hoarder — and that behavior is lastly paying off.

How I used AI to resolve my drawback

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Commercial images requires quite a lot of storage. I normally want three or 4 transportable drives for a job, and typically as many as 5 – 6. And as a result of a consumer would possibly come again three years later to resume the belongings, I’ve to maintain the information lengthy after a shoot is over.

On a latest marketing campaign that concerned each video and nonetheless images, shopping for that quantity of recent drives would have value me $4,000 to $5,000.

That was cash I did not need to spend.

So, I used Claude to assist me construct a program that catalogs what’s saved throughout my drives. Now, I can seek for a file, discover each drive that accommodates a duplicate, and work out what I can safely delete to unlock house.

Instead of manually organizing a whole bunch of drives, I can basically have a dialog with my archive. It’s saved me days, if not weeks, value of labor.

The irony is not misplaced on me: I consider demand from the info facilities powering AI is one cause storage has gotten so costly, after which I flip round and use Claude to assist me keep away from spending 1000’s of {dollars} on new drives.

I do not know the way lengthy I can keep away from shopping for extra drives

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How lengthy I can hold avoiding new onerous drives is dependent upon how a lot work is available in.

If I’m taking pictures solely nonetheless images, I can in all probability hold this going for some time. Video is totally different. I’m primarily employed to shoot video and stills collectively, and people jobs require a lot storage that ultimately I’ll want extra drives.

Also, my enterprise is down about 30% from its peak in 2023. Last yr was notably tough, and this yr has been roughly flat in contrast with final yr.

I do not blame all of that on the promoting trade. Earlier in my profession, I labored 10- or 13-hour days, answered emails at midnight and on weekends, and made myself terribly accessible.

Now I’ve two younger daughters, and I’m extra more likely to spend my time at a soccer recreation or taking considered one of them someplace. So after I have a look at that decline, I do know a few of it displays a alternative I’ve made to spend much less time working.

Still, I’m watching the trade intently.

The value of doing enterprise has gone up whereas, in my expertise, firms and businesses are reallocating their budgets or spending much less on some conventional images and promoting work.

I additionally do not count on hard-drive costs merely to return to what I used to be used to paying. My guess is that ultimately one other producer may step in to serve shoppers who want cheaper storage.

Until then, I’m going to maintain being resourceful with what I’ve. If work picks up, I’ll in all probability have to begin shopping for drives once more. If it does not, I could make these a whole bunch of previous drives final lots longer.