How much storage will a web development learner need?

I'm planning to learn web development, make projects so that I can apply for jobs.

I currently have a 1 TB hard drive. I still have 650-700 GB of space left on hard drive. I've used it for more than 10000 hrs and the disk health isn't looking great either.

So, I'm switching to SSD.

Every penny counts because we don't make that much income. Thus, we can't be extravagant. While buying 1TB SSD would still be utilized in some way or other, but I need higher return of what I pay(ie utilize sufficiently for web development purposes) Companies give a new laptop if you start working in them (Not to interns). After getting a job, buying laptops won't be that hard although a laptop that serves my purpose will cost 7 months of new dev's salary here.

Here's my software requirements. The storage are just my guesses, your insights would be valuable here.

1) Windows 10/11. It'll take maximum 64 GB.
2) Microsoft Office Professional containing word,doc, ppt, excel. 4 GB
3) Brave browser (Not considering downloads for browser. Downloads can go to hard disk)
4) Chrome browser 100 MB for install, ? for cache?...etc please tell
5) Firefox browser 100MB for install
6) images2pdf softwares At most 1GB size(estimate)
7) cold turkey type softwar/ org emacs (only one) At most 1GB size(estimate)
8) IDE(probably VScode or pycharm whatever supports web development and is easy to use for beginners)
9) Web development installations (for 1 stack like MERN, MEAN etc) Not sure about it
10) Viber/Telegram Downloads (Can be removed regularly on unwanted basis) 2GB but most of it can always be deleted or transferred back to hard drive if they're really important. Or at all install viber outside of SSD.
11) Save codes and notes on Joplin while learning. Notes will contain images+codes+text. Not sure about estimate? They can be printed after some time and delete from laptop.
12) Note taking app on Joplin

My files storage requirements (of current):

1) Important docs 34.7MB
2) Study materials that needs to be saved forever 41.5 GB ( I can instead just keep a name of the book and download it later as they're all downloaded from online. Almost/More than 85% storage can be freed up here)
3) Very important courses downloads 103.16 GB
4) Unimportant courses 206.1 GB (I downloaded them online, It's very less likely that I'm going to use them. They're not very important. But I could need them if a course is really good or if the topic is really tough and I need multiple insights)

In my region, If 1 TB hard drive costs x, then 128GB pen drive costs 0.307x and 256GB SSD 0.538x and 512GB SSD costs 1.153x.

Can you share your ideas about what should I do?

My view:
1) Get 128GB pen drive to store 103.16GB Very Important Courses
2) Buy 256GB SSD. 64GB for OS and 192GB for files.

Would this plan work? Is there better approach to this?Remind of the things that I'm letting go unnoticed at the momet as well.

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I should tell that it's full stack web development i.e frontend+backend (With more focus on backend). I'd be learning stacks like MEAN/MERN/Django+sql+react etc.

cereberus said:

How long is a piece of string?

Also 256 GB SSD is pretty small these days. I would not assign OS plus programs less that 128 GB. You will run out of space on 64 GB in no time. That is the bare minimum space required for W11 fir example).

One thing is for sure, relying on flash drives to store data is a really bad plan as flash drives are not that reliable and prone to failure (and easily lost).

Also, the moment you start doing serious learning/development, you really have to think about backups, particularly of data. Drives fail, users make mistakes etc. With data on a single drive, you risk losing the lot. As a minimum you need a 1TB HDD external usb drive for backup. The cloud is also a good place e.g. onedrive. Even the free 5GB space will store a lot of material.

Can you tell me why it'd take 128GB for OS programs? Can you tell the programs name and their size?

My friend has learnt all web and app dev in 128GB SSD and 512 or 1TB hard disk. So, I'm wondering why you think it's not enough? So that I can plan properly.

For backups, github is there. Nobody will use my apps. It's just for project to show case. I'm not interested in making money or sth. heroku can host projects for it.

What backups do you think are important?

I would go with a 1TB SSD with 256 go for OS and the rest for DATA and at least 2 TB external HDD to image OS and backup DATA.

When you do development, you want to have multiple backups of your project during it's evolution, a lot of them. it enables you to step back easily in case of major problems.

cereberus said:

As I said - how long is a piece of string?

Only you can judge how much you need but always better to err on safe side.

Well backups - anything that is important not to be lost.

What's piece of string? I didn't get it.

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Thank you. So, what's the space required for the applications? i.e VS code, django framework, python download etc etc? I want an overview of it.

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MaloK said:

I would go with a 1TB SSD with 256 go for OS and the rest for DATA and at least 2 TB external HDD to image OS and backup DATA.

When you do development, you want to have multiple backups of your project during it's evolution, a lot of them. it enables you to step back easily in case of major problems.

1TB SSD here costs 1 month income. If I really need it, I would take a look at it. But I'm trying to figure out if I actually need it. So, I want exact estimations. I think a programming forum would be more appropriate for it.

Plus I'm not professional. I'm learning to get a job. So, are backups really that important? I'll put the end project files on github. I don't think I'm making more than 2 projects either.

My main caution is how much applications and tools used to build software will require space be it IDE, framework, database software etc.

If I can get accurate measurment of it, I'd be more confident in purchasing rather than closing my eyes and getting 1TB or 2TB SSD. If I was too rich, I'd do it.

Ghot said:

@miroplesko

No matter how much storage you have, you'll need more, down the road.

Oh yes. But resources is not infinite that's why we want to optimize it. But that's a good view.