You missed the point of what I was saying

2 tb flash drives are expensive but exist

Pigeon could carry 4 tb in 2 flash drives worth of weight.

But simply 3 1 tb drives a pigeon can carry so they did that.

If they had to transfer 5 tb of data to win. 3 2 tb drives would have worked.

This article just states that a pigeon can carry 3 1 tb drives and deliver it faster than gigabit internet.

They didn’t need to push the envelope anymore

So yes they calculated that the pigeon could carry 3 drives and that 3 tb was all that was needed to carry to win.

But they didn’t set up the experiment to favor the pigeon. They set it up to prove it could be done that way.