Storage Planning in BuildSmith: Size for the Models You Will Actually Keep
Storage is where AI builds quietly undersize. A single 70B model at FP16 is about 140 GB of weights. Add three more models, a fine tuning dataset, checkpoints that multiply while you sleep, and the sensible 1 TB drive is full by the second month. BuildSmith's storage step plans from your model list, not from a default.
The planner adds the weights of every model in your plan at the precision you chose, doubles it for checkpoints and versions, adds your dataset size, and then picks the smallest drive tier in the directory that holds the total with a third to spare. It also splits the plan when the number gets big: fast NVMe for models in rotation, bulk capacity for the archive, rather than one heroic drive.
What the directory stocks, by capacity tier
| Capacity tier | Storage products listed |
|---|---|
| 1 TB or less | 36 |
| 2 TB | 43 |
| 4 TB | 20 |
| 8 TB or more | 41 |
Listings by tier
Speed enters after capacity. The app prefers Gen5 drives where the board supports them and the workload is load heavy, and it will tell you when a Gen4 drive plus more RAM is the smarter spend, the same trade as our Gen5 versus Gen4 read. No plan leaves with a single 1 TB drive and a 405B ambition; the app would rather argue with you at planning time than at 2 AM.
The archive tier deserves its own word, because it is where the big disks in this dataset earn their place. Checkpoints you might roll back to, datasets you are keeping for the record, model versions a client pinned: none of it needs Gen5 speed, all of it needs room, and the cost per terabyte in the bulk tier is a fraction of the fast tier. Splitting the tiers is the single easiest saving in most plans the app reviews. There is a failure argument too. One drive holding the only copy of a fine tune is not a storage plan, and the split quietly creates the second copy that every backup lecture demands, without a lecture.
Call it the 2 AM rule: size for the night the drive is full and the checkpoint is due. Nobody ever regretted the extra two terabytes at planning time, and everybody has regretted the opposite at exactly that hour. The planner's job is to have the argument with you early, while it is still cheap.
Browse the tiers yourself on the storage page. BuildSmith is in development; waitlist on the homepage.