digital archiving: my memories are now quantified in terabytes
it's about that time where i need to get a new phone. the storage capacity i got at the time was sufficient then, but it isn't now. storage isn't what it used to be. external hard drives are becoming the norm. i overestimate sentimentality until i get an alert that i'm low in storage. according to my devices, it seems to be an estimated 0.5 terabyte's worth of memories--the rest is hanging tight in various google drive accounts, bringing it over 1TB. this is just me, and what i've accumulated. peers and relatives with children, it's double, even triple this amount. less film, more digital documentation, from digital cameras to phone cameras.
the latest iphones have a max of 1 terabyte of storage available. these are the only models i'm looking at to purchase. i've had android phones before, but it just seems easier to keep on with apple. less of a hassle transferring data from old device to new. however, regardless of the storage capacity i do choose, i'm not free to use all of it. say i get the 1TB iphone. a portion of that is set aside for system processes and software updates, both fluctuating in their own ways. then there's the apps i do use--some taking up local storage, some not--and a select few documents. whatever is left over is for photos. larger storage capacity is ideal in my case, as time has shown with each new phone.
i have maybe several iphones worth of photos on my person--from the iphone 5c, to intermittently skipping generations until my present phone, the iphone 11. i buy phones and use them until software updates render them unusable, which is, give or take, 4 or 5 years on a average. by then, the phone is paid off. from there, it's mainly for storing photos and messaging, but from a storage standpoint, it's a mobile photo album. i got a macbook (thanks fafsa) to lessen the weight of photos, but after importing so many times from phone to laptop, i seem to be reaching maximum capacity once again.
i'm pressed with thinking, "what do i keep? what do i delete?" something as abstract as a snapshot from an out of town trip, a sidewalk crack i see every week, or even a meme are contextualized in pixels and file formats. i am able to print these, yes, with a fee, but something about this abstraction makes it hard to let go. i question if i can recall these memories on my own or in conversation, or if i ever will, after deletion.
the metadata on each photo glares at me. yes, this is a meme that has stood the test of time and can be retrieved with vague keywords, but i saved this in 2021! friend of mine remarked on this, how i could've easily searched the meme up on google, but instead presented an archived specimen, one that is timestamped, a relic from the source. very lighthearted, but i do find myself thinking, wow, i recall the circumstances around saving this from the date alone. if i delete, i delete the archival sentiment with it.
it's silly, really, having an archive of memories, some that can easily be googled again, or brought up when around certain people and environments. this is a similar conundrum, i'd think, with folks who had the time and funds for a polaroid habit back in its heyday, or even those at present with the film available now: storage. trade off is, as long as you have the negatives, you're good. but you have to carefully store those, seal away from the elements. and over time, those take up tangible space. the same applies to photo albums. trade off with digital archiving is there's nothing making your living area cramped, but somehow the weight in phones and hard drives appear bulkier.
this thought train started because i was trying to see how much space i had in my laptop to move a .mov file over to my desktop from online. it turns out i have less space available than i thought. at a glance, i know some things can be trimmed, but much of it is in fact photos spanning from 2019 to present. i will need an external hard drive sooner than later. i have to wonder, though--will external hard drives take the place of photo albums in boxes? haven't they already?