alt Hacker NewsSubscription is still worth it for most people though. Sure it costs more, but your 2TB plan isn't a single harddrive, it is likely across several harddrives with RAID ensuring that when (not if!) they fail no data is lost, plus remote backups. When something breaks the subscription fixes that for no extra charge.
If you know how to admin a computer and have time for it, then doing it yourself is cheaper. However make sure you are comparing the real costs - not just the 2TB, but the backup system (that is tested to work), and all your time.
That said, subscriptions have all too often failed reasonable privacy standards. This is an important part of the cost that is rarely accounted for.
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> Sure it costs more, but your 2TB plan isn't a single harddrive, it is likely across several harddrives with RAID ensuring that when (not if!) they fail no data is lost, plus remote backups. When something breaks the subscription fixes that for no extra charge.
Well yes, of course. And for cloud compute you get that same uptime expectation. Which if you need it is wonderful (and for something like data arguably critical for almost everyone). But if we're just talking something like a video game console? Ehhh, not so much. So no, you don't include the backup system cost just because cloud has it. You only include that cost if you want it.
I’m not even sure it does cost more. I could have a geforcenow subscription for like 8 years before it’s more expensive than building a similar spec gaming rig.