need some computer help.

6']['9 · 10-20-05, 04:32

im getting to the point where i dont have much hard drive space. i currently have a dell inspiron laptop and my hard drive is a 20G and im thinking i need more hard drive space.
So what do need to do purchase another hard drive? and if so where do i get one from.... Im totally lost from here. I dont what im looking to spend if and or i even need a new HD or what.

Any suggestions?

marko · 10-20-05, 05:47

I work with databases and am not an actual IT guy, but I can get you started.

couple of questions for you. how much drive space is free? how much physical memory do you have? what's your O/S, i.e. which version of windows are you running? ok. three questions then. the reasons I ask are:

- you need at least 10% of your hd free or your system will slow considerably
- with less memory on your system (<128-256MB), swap files become larger and more necessary, and that means you need more free space on your hd. it's about headroom.

if you're running win xp on a laptop, you probably have hibernation enabled. you can free a little space - 256 MB or so - by turning it off: start | control panel | power options | hibernate, then uncheck the "enable" box. having hibernation enabled reserves drive space in order to save the current state / instance to disk, and disabling this feature simply releases the drive space necessary to do that.

remember if you choose to get a bigger drive you'll be replacing the hd in your laptop, not adding another one, so you'll want to think about the consequences, like reloading your O/S and all your programs and transferring all your data. this is not easily done without another computer, a network and another computer, or external storage.

my best advice is to consider how much hd you're using for programs and how much for data, and make a decision whether it's best to get a bigger hd or to uninstall little used programs and delete some data.

couple of other things if you decide to try to clean things up a bit... you'd be surprised how large media files have become these days - video is huge, audio can be huge, pictures can be large, etc, and none of these files compress very well - so data can take more space than you might think. take a look for yourself. also, take a look at cleaning up your mailboxes (sent and deleted items folders) and your temp files, and don't forget your internet explorer cache, etc.

psl car wash · 10-20-05, 05:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by marko

also, take a look at cleaning up your mailboxes (sent and deleted items folders

your mailbox mail takes up space?? i never knew this...i thought it was stored in the mail server??!

JBM · 10-20-05, 06:33

Clean out everything that is old, not used ect..

Download this and run it: http://www.ccleaner.com/ccdownload.asp

Use the "Free up disk space feature" under control panel.

Defrag.

Kazzaa and whatnot use a lot of space if you got a bunch of stuff on it.

zaink · 10-20-05, 07:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by 6']['9

im getting to the point where i dont have much hard drive space. i currently have a dell inspiron laptop and my hard drive is a 20G and im thinking i need more hard drive space.
So what do need to do purchase another hard drive? and if so where do i get one from.... Im totally lost from here. I dont what im looking to spend if and or i even need a new HD or what.

Any suggestions?

if i ever come over to your house for that detail thing, maybe i can help you out installing a harddrive

im not to bad at it, ive done some work with computers before

6']['9 · 10-20-05, 07:30

after reading about re running the OS id rather try and keep what i have and minimize what i dont use. Im resizing all my pics by i have a lot of music on my comp that are wav files but i dont know how to go about converting them to MP3 that should save some space..

Dave N · 10-20-05, 07:35

If you have files (pictures and music) that you don't use all that often, you could put them on an external drive. You may want to check out external usb hard drives and move some of your stuff over.

marko · 10-20-05, 07:47

seems the most reasonable to me. I'm in the business, but I'm not fond of rebuilding systems and with a new hd that's pretty much what you're talking about. I have IT guys at the office to load my laptops, but there's still hours of work to rebuild business systems I use when I travel. no fun.

usb storage is cool but last I checked max affordable is a bit limited at about a GB or so. nice little units though.

Prometheus · 10-21-05, 05:14

Another external option is this . You buy any regular 3.5 inch hard drive from Staples or Office Max or wherever and just plug it in to that device. It will probably need to be formatted, but all the hard drives I've ever bought (which has been quite a few, pushing a dozen) all came with a disc that did that for you. I have a setup like this, and I really like it. You can find a decent 80 gig drive for about $50, so figure for $85 for the case you've just quadroupled your storage space.

I have a setup just like this (except mine has firewire too) and I love it. Don't know how I lived so long without it. Just another option for you.

Inthedetails · 10-21-05, 10:31

For short cash (20 or 30 bucks) you can by thumb or pens drives. Mine hold 256 meg, but they make em up to a gig now. Put all your photos and crap there. They connect thru yout USB port, so it isn't a hassle to access them.

NYC2SoCal · 10-21-05, 10:57

All valid points. Can you identify where the bulk of your space is going? 20GB is not alot, but if you can identify that a majority of it are user files (docs, prez, spreadsheets, pics, etc), you can probably burn them to a cd. Your laptop may or may not come with a cd-rw, but you can buy an external usb one. It might be more financially sound to buy a new laptop.. I think I saw a dell laptop for like $450.

TortoiseAWD · 10-22-05, 05:30

Sounds to me like an external drive would take care of your problem nicely, and they've come down quite a bit in price: http://www.compusa.com/products/prod...rice%7C0#sort1

80GB for around $70 after rebate; not too bad. The other option you might explore (especially if you have an old IDE hard drive laying around) is to buy an external USB enclosure, and use your own drive: http://www.compusa.com/products/prod...wsed%7C1#sort1

Good luck,
Tort