I have a laptop and desktop PC, both have 32GB of RAM. They each have a 2TB SSD to boot from and a 4TB SSD for media handling. Once I'm done editing, I offload to a pair of NAS servers, 4-bay, 4x 14TB drives with 1 drive redundancy, so it's 42TB each.
Then once in awhile, I back the NAS data to a bunch of externals.
But honestly, the still photography stuff takes up very little space. I think all the photos I have ever taken across 20 years only takes up about 10TB, and I output JPEG+RAW. Most of the pictures have been 36 mpx (D800) up to 60 (A7R4).
32 GB memory. LR catalog on a 1 TB Gen 5 M.2 SSD, Image files on an 8TB spinning disk. No issues at all with Canon R5 and R7 files, and I always have multiple files open. I have three backup drives in different places.
Saving layered files can be an issue with spinning disks. While working, I save as TIF uncompressed, and the save is quick. I archive as TIF with both file and layers compressed. This takes a minute.
I have two home offices, both with 32” IPS screens and both with similar laptops with similar specs. The laptop I’m currently using is a Lenovo, the other an Asus, so I’ll describe the Lenovo since it’s nearby.
Intel® Core™ Ultra 9 275HX Processor
(E-cores up to 4.60 GHz, P-cores up to 5.40 GHz)
Operating System: Windows 11 Pro 64
Operating System Language: Windows 11 Pro 64 English
Microsoft Productivity Software: Microsoft Office Home 2024
Memory: 64 GB DDR5-6400MT/s (CSODIMM) - (2 x 32 GB)
Second Solid-State Drive: 1 TB SSD M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 TLC
Graphics Card: NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 5090 Laptop GPU 24GB GDDR7
I seldom use the internal SSDs, working from external SSDs with multiple backups at both locations.
I have an R5 and 2 100MP medium format cameras; neither of the laptops even hesitates or hiccups, regardless of the large file sizes, they work perfectly.
I currently have a desktop with a 9800X3D and a 5080FE, but I upgraded right before the rampocalypse from an RX 6800XT. Besides the increased raw performance, I found CUDA acceleration to help quite a bit.
