Having returned recently from a photo trip to Greece, I've been getting my images sorted and archived. At one point I decided to total the amount of hard drive space those photos were taking up, and it was something of a shock. Seven days of shooting resulted in 30 Gigabytes of images!

Those of us who started in computers back in the 1980's like to sit around and talk about the first hard drive we bought (20MB - yes, megabytes) and how much is cost ($600). Then we start talking about the first "real" digital cameras we had (1.3 megapixels, $15,000) and how fast everything's changed. I think that digital photography and video are what's really driven the hard drive market the last five years.

Everthing I shot in 1993 (and that means everything) totaled 60GB.This year I need a 500GB drive to hold it all. And sadly, I'm probably shooting less. There are two reasons for this massive increase - higher megapixel cameras and RAW files. And I'm convinced RAW files are the real culprit.

Are RAW files worth it? Sometimes, yes. If you make a mistake with white balance or exposure, they can be life savers. The rest of the time, though, a high-qualiy JPEG, shot properly, is probably all you need. I've made three-foot by two-foot prints from 4 megapixel cameras, so I don't buy into the argument that you need RAW to print big.

So what's the bottom line? Sure, I'll continue to support the storage companies and buy large hard drives. But I'll also probably go back to shooting more JPEG files, just like I used to.