According to their pricing page, a 50TB SSD from Nimbus costs $12,500. That would have been worth the expense in DBA time alone, right?
Edit: added the link. https://nimbusdata.com/products/exadrive/pricing/
Edit: added the link. https://nimbusdata.com/products/exadrive/pricing/
You're assuming the DBA did nothing else during the project's timeline, and that's not likely the case. A lot of work in projects like this is just letting the batch job run while you keep an eye on it.