Tech manufacturers make it quite possible to buy inadequate hardware Whether you are buying a computer (laptop, desktop, Windows, Mac), a smartphone or tablet (Apple or Android), it is possible to spend a lot of money on something that will soon be inadequate because there isn’t enough space to store all your stuff. The phrase …
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Tag:hard drive
SSDs are not “go faster” Hard Drives
Solid State Drives (SSDs) do the same job as hard drives (except much faster), but they shouldn’t be treated exactly the same There is no doubt that the performance boost offered by SSDs is huge. As far as the content of our drives is concerned (and that includes the operating system, the programs, and the …
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Protect Data when Disposing of a Computer – 1 of 2
How do I get rid of a computer but keep my private data private? This is a simple question that I’m often asked by my computer support clients. Pity the answer isn’t as simple. In fact, it can be complicated – technically and/or financially. If the drive is in situ in a complete computer and …
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External Backup Drives
“Should I buy an external backup drive” is one of the most common questions I am asked by my computer support clients My answer is usually “yes”, because the question implies that the client is not backing up anything at the moment. The next question is, of course, “what should I buy?” The main considerations …
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Checking File Sizes and Space Available
How do you check how much space is available on your drive(s), and how do you check the size of the files themselves? The usual way of checking on file sizes and space is by using “Windows Explorer”. This is nothing to do with “Internet Explorer” (the Microsoft browser program used to view web pages). …
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File Sizes – 2
What are the factors that make file size relevant? The first that comes to mind is the size of an email attachment.It’s possible that an attachment of greater than 5mb will not get through. CD – if you are copying (“burning”) files to a CD then you have about 730MB available (less if it’s a …
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File Sizes
How big are files? Last week we looked at hard drives in terms of the different definitions of their size. Let’s have a look this week at the range of different sizes of files that will be stored on the drive. The size of computer files can be important for a number of reasons: The …
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When is a Gb not a Gb and why doesn’t it matter?
Let’s suppose that you’ve finally decided to buy an external drive to back up at least some of your important files. Maybe you’re doing this just because you know it’s a good idea or maybe you are a computer support client of mine and you’re tired of me dropping very heavy hints about backups. I’m …
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Portents of Hard Drive Failure
Is your hard drive working properly? Is it likely to fail? What would you do if it did? Hard drive manufacturers used to rate the reliability of their drives in terms of a number of hours “MTBF” (mean time between failures). This was supposed to tell you how long you could reasonably expect a drive …
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Protecting Data when Disposing of a Computer
Disposing of your old computer may not be as easy as might imagine. You can not simply put it in a wheelie bin, destined for landfill. Computers contain several metals that will poison the ground. There are EU laws banning disposal in this way. Either take it to a local authority waste disposal site or …
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