I used Claude to solve a problem that data centers helped cause for my photography business. It's saved me thousands.

Allen Cooley Business Insider Photographer Allen Cooley spent more than $20,000 on hard drives in 2025 as storage costs jumped.

He used Claude to catalog old drives and identify files he could safely delete for reuse.

The tool saved him thousands in new costs, though video work may eventually force him to buy more.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Allen Cooley, photographer, director, and founder of Allen Cooley Photography, a commercial, beauty, and portrait studio based in Atlanta, Georgia.

The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

I've been working professionally as a photographer since about 2006, and for most of my career, I barely had to think about the price of hard drives.

They were a basic cost of doing business.

Now, I have to be strategic about every drive I buy.

I started noticing a spike in hard drive prices toward the end of 2025.

When I went back through my receipts, I found that I'd paid $400 for a 4-terabyte drive in 2022.

Today, a comparable drive costs around $1,200.

When I tallied up what I'd paid in 2025 for drives, it was over $20,000.

That's why I stopped buying them entirely this year.

Luckily, I've accumulated hundreds of hard drives over my career.