not knowing much about computers i am in need of some advice. my 80gb hard drive is nearly full,i have a lot of music mp3 files and jpeg photos,rather than having my pc dismantled to fit a bigger hard drive are the external ones a solution,i have a spare usb socket. is it easy to access and transfer these files using an external hd,would they be easily found without using a search function (would it be under"my computer")
external hard drive
- Thread starter goon
- Start date
(the levels of advice on these forums astound me - no offence, but I wish people would put more effort into helping newcomers out - sureley if you cannot post a reasonable reply, is there any point in just posting a one or two liner? Just a waste of bandwidth, button clicking and traffic IMO.
anyway................
Firstly, before thinking about adding additional storage, take in to account how you use your PC. If you have nearly filled an 80GB drive, then its safe to assume you do no housekeeping (by that I mean regulary deleted unused files, arhiving data etc) and simply adding more storage will encourage you to be more lazy with the way you work.
Various methods can be used to free space on a hard drive, and also bare in mind that due to the inneficient way Windows Indexing works (if you dont switch it off) the more files you store and access, the more footprints are left in the registry, the more you degrade Windows performance, and it will all go horribly wrong, usually ending up with you losing vital data.
Make a point of regulary cleaning tmp and cached files as these accumalate over time and take up disk space. You can run the command prompt and using wildcard strings and issue del c:\*.tmp -f /s which will delete temp files from your hard drive and also force deletion from all subfolders. PLEASE BE CAREFUL with this command. You can also change the file extension to the most commonly used uneeded files such as .bak, etc etc
If you feel however, you require more space, then installing an internal HDD is not the headache you may imagine it to be, and once installed, will display as a drive in 'My computer' allowing you to drag & drop from one drive to another. An external unit works in exactly the same way, but of course, without the need to open up your case, and fiddle with SATA/IDE cables, jumper switch selection and BIOS configuration etc.
File access speed is slightly slower over USB2/USB and theres usually a little more latency in an external drive then internal. Remember your adding an long USB cable, connection interface and other electronics which are all impeding speed against an internally installed one that just has to push data down a multi channel high speed IDE/SATA cable.
however, for most users, HDD speed and access times is not an issue these days.
Be aware also that as a beginner, if you elect to install an internal drive, read the instructions. If you opt for the latter, an external unit (which would be better in your case) then you can just plug and play.
Opt for a recognised brand, the higher quality the better, makes such as Buffalo, Linksys, Snap, Freecom all do quality units.
Hope that helps
anyway................
Firstly, before thinking about adding additional storage, take in to account how you use your PC. If you have nearly filled an 80GB drive, then its safe to assume you do no housekeeping (by that I mean regulary deleted unused files, arhiving data etc) and simply adding more storage will encourage you to be more lazy with the way you work.
Various methods can be used to free space on a hard drive, and also bare in mind that due to the inneficient way Windows Indexing works (if you dont switch it off) the more files you store and access, the more footprints are left in the registry, the more you degrade Windows performance, and it will all go horribly wrong, usually ending up with you losing vital data.
Make a point of regulary cleaning tmp and cached files as these accumalate over time and take up disk space. You can run the command prompt and using wildcard strings and issue del c:\*.tmp -f /s which will delete temp files from your hard drive and also force deletion from all subfolders. PLEASE BE CAREFUL with this command. You can also change the file extension to the most commonly used uneeded files such as .bak, etc etc
If you feel however, you require more space, then installing an internal HDD is not the headache you may imagine it to be, and once installed, will display as a drive in 'My computer' allowing you to drag & drop from one drive to another. An external unit works in exactly the same way, but of course, without the need to open up your case, and fiddle with SATA/IDE cables, jumper switch selection and BIOS configuration etc.
File access speed is slightly slower over USB2/USB and theres usually a little more latency in an external drive then internal. Remember your adding an long USB cable, connection interface and other electronics which are all impeding speed against an internally installed one that just has to push data down a multi channel high speed IDE/SATA cable.
however, for most users, HDD speed and access times is not an issue these days.
Be aware also that as a beginner, if you elect to install an internal drive, read the instructions. If you opt for the latter, an external unit (which would be better in your case) then you can just plug and play.
Opt for a recognised brand, the higher quality the better, makes such as Buffalo, Linksys, Snap, Freecom all do quality units.
Hope that helps
Last edited:
oh and with all due respect to cromwells advice, I wouldnt suggest buying a hard drive and caddy, these are more prone to failure, not worth the inherent cost savings anyway, as portable hard drives have never been as cheap as they are today, and also require little or no technical knowledge to install as a opposed to a hard drive/caddy option. Sureley by choosing this route, you may as well install the drive internally anyway and negate the need to use one of your USB ports.
!!!
!!!
pdc76
New Member
snotty little noobie, ain't ya? first of all, he said he had a spare usb port. second of all, nothing cromewell said was unreasonable.
i highly doubt his 80gig hard drive is almost full due to temp files. i used to have an 80gig drive that eventually became too small for my needs, and it was not because i was ''lazy''. i perform weekly cleanups on all my pc's. everyone just eventually accumulates more stuff than they have the space for.
if you buy quality parts, there's not much more of a chance that something could go wrong than if you buy one already assembled. have you ever taken one apart? it's basically the same thing. are you saying you trust someone else to put it together over doing it yourself? besides, down the road, you can remove the hard drive from the enclosure and install it internally. then you can put another drive in it's place. us computer guys always have extra drives laying around. it'd be nice to have enclosures to put them in. like a giant thumb drive.
anyway, chill out and stop nagging on the quality of people's posts. if you don't like the way things are done here, no one is forcing you to stay.
i highly doubt his 80gig hard drive is almost full due to temp files. i used to have an 80gig drive that eventually became too small for my needs, and it was not because i was ''lazy''. i perform weekly cleanups on all my pc's. everyone just eventually accumulates more stuff than they have the space for.
if you buy quality parts, there's not much more of a chance that something could go wrong than if you buy one already assembled. have you ever taken one apart? it's basically the same thing. are you saying you trust someone else to put it together over doing it yourself? besides, down the road, you can remove the hard drive from the enclosure and install it internally. then you can put another drive in it's place. us computer guys always have extra drives laying around. it'd be nice to have enclosures to put them in. like a giant thumb drive.
anyway, chill out and stop nagging on the quality of people's posts. if you don't like the way things are done here, no one is forcing you to stay.
Bl00dFox
New Member
Yes helping newcomers out is good. Just like giving them del c:\*.tmp /f /s. That's not playing with fire is it? Yes you said be careful with it but mistakes still happen. A better way would be to run disk cleanup.
With the what was posted earlier, it isn't likely that temp files are using up all the space especially since they already said they have lots of mp3s and jpgs (neither of which are that big on their own but it adds up in a hurry)