Media storage - Best Options?

Like the thread says lol.

What are some good options for media storage? Obviously I'd like to keep my files for the sake of keeping them. But I'm also delving in to the Youtube world, where we are ending up with a bunch of media files from every trip. (currently we are pretty much doing 2 trips a month)

I have already filled our (new) laptop with trip files. Ended up buying a Samsung T7 portable SSD... that's another issue... It's supposed to be a 500GB drive. Says it has 497GB (totally normal) but it says I'm out of space at 8GB

I'm pretty new to all this shit. Any help, advice, discussion, would be greatly appreciated.

 

First two thoughts -

Is the drive partitioned so you're only seeing part of it?

Are there hidden files on it?

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/search?query=how to view hidden files in windows 10

 

There are zero files on it. Re-formated and completely wiped it.

I've since found that I can drop a bunch of files from phones, SD cards, on to it. It just doesn't want to take more than. 8 gigs from the computer.