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Registered User
Joined: 4/18/2005
Posts: 4,090
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Can programs like blocks be run from an external harddrive with out any real problem or are those simply a glorified giant flash drive? I use Blocks once every two weeks for about 20 minuites so I don't think I'll burn it up but then I would also transfer all my "junk files" to that drive.. photos and what not. The thing Is i'm trying to increase my computing speed and be able to run a few more things. Like video burning software and I lke to use Corel * for a little light graphics work... but I use it to manipulate photos which pulls in the memory not the most eficient way to do it but I know the software.
So I'm debating putting in a bigger hard drive and having to go through all the stupid file swaping and disk cloning (that stuff never works right the first time for me) as well as the physical aspect of putting the thing in.
Where as If I could just buy an external hard drive then pug it in and go then that would be perfect.
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Registered User
Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 902
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Scott - wouldn't your issues have more to do with processing power than hard drive capacity? How much RAM do you have? How fast is your processor? Upgrading them will have more of an impact on your computing speed than adding hard drive storage memory.
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Registered User
Joined: 4/18/2005
Posts: 4,090
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Actually I just upgraded my ram again and I have a pentium 4. I'm cooking with one GIG now and TC FLIES. The VPCI indicator on screen used to take about one second to scroll back one day...... dosent even slow it down baby.
Well the other main issue is that i'm at a little over have my hard drive filled. And I recent moved allot of stuvv to CD's. The Corel is a sizeable program and when I use it I use it for a few hours at a time.. A fried advised me to be careful with external harddrives becaseu his company burns them up frequently and had had custom cooled casings for theirs made... but they are a huge archetectural firm with several draftsmen compiling autocad files layered of everything from electrical,mechanical, structural and god knows what else for dozzens of buildings at a time... so basically thier files are HUGE.. and for them to be working off of an external hard drive it makes sense that they may be burning drives up. I have a sense that it's gonna be ok for me.
I have also read/heard that leaving as much disk space free as possible increases speed as well. Short term memory and not having to dig into burried files etc etc.
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Registered User
Joined: 1/28/2005
Posts: 6,049
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This may sound crazy but it worked for me. I bought a second
hard drive. Instead of putting it where it should go. I put
brackets on the sides and stand it up on the bottom of the
computer. (my computers side is open.)
I put the important stuff on one drive and frivolous stuff
on the other. When I want to do one or the other I simply
unplug the drive.
(its like I have 2 computers)
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A second point is I have my email and stock accounts
and internet on both. That way should one crash. I still
have access to all my stuff.
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Really important stuff, personal, photos. I back up
on an external drive thru the USB port.
(it also helps when you want to "shuffle" files.
Thanks
diceman
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Registered User
Joined: 4/18/2005
Posts: 4,090
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When I opened mine last night I realized I have an empty port.... a friend was telling me I could just ad the 2nd hard drive and make one of them a slave. but the thing is I can knick right around the corner to walmart and get a western digital 300 gig inboard hard drive or for $20 more get 360 external and not have to deal with installing it and setting up slaves etc etc etc.
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Registered User
Joined: 5/15/2007
Posts: 18
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Scott,
I am an MCSE and if you want something to run faster, don't put it on any sort of external hard drive. Although Firewire drives are pretty fast, they are still 50% slower than an internal SATA hard drive (100mb per sec vs 150mb per sec). USB externals are even slower(50-60mb per sec). As drives fill up the access times get slower and slower, there's really no way to avoid it. Best you can do is to max out your RAM, max out your processor or get something that is faster. The other alternative is to get a bigger internal hard drive and move all the data to that and let your programs reside on the C drive or system drive and if you max out your RAM and Processor you should be fine. All systems have room for at least 2 internal hard drives. Externals are more for static storage, they are not going to perform well.
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Registered User
Joined: 4/18/2005
Posts: 4,090
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Processor is maxed (pentium 4) or at least shoud be good enough.. I upgraded from 512 to 1 gig or Ram and thats good enough I think. I have 40 GIG hard drive and a smaller one that is partitioned (might be part of the same drive but it shows up as a seperate drive on my computer). I do have an empty slot though.. I thought about getting a western digital 200 gig but I can get a 360 external for a few dollars more.
If I get the internal is it difficult to put it in and configure it to work with the other ones? Basically I ddon't want to go through cloning my hard drive and replacing it but I want to put my frivolous files somewhere else to free up disk space so that I can also run my graphics software. I don't use Blocks much so I thought I'd toss it there as well.
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Registered User
Joined: 5/15/2007
Posts: 18
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Scott,
Putting an internal hard drive is pretty easy. You just have to change some jumpers on the drive. Set it for slave, Connect the drive power Fire it up and go into the bios by pressing f1 or delete and make sure the Bios is auto detecting on all hard drive controllers and poof! you have a new drive in windows next time you boot up.
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Registered User
Joined: 5/15/2007
Posts: 18
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QUOTE (gmnash2000) Scott,
Putting an internal hard drive is pretty easy. You just have to change some jumpers on the drive. Set it for slave, Connect the drive power Fire it up and go into the bios by pressing f1 or delete and make sure the Bios is auto detecting on all hard drive controllers and poof! you have a new drive in windows next time you boot up.
Your C drive will stay the same as it is now, adding an internal hard drive will give you a new drive letter automatically. You won't need to configure it and it will be ready to house data, install programs etc.. as long as it's installed correctly
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Registered User
Joined: 4/18/2005
Posts: 4,090
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Thanks!
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Registered User
Joined: 10/7/2004
Posts: 2,126
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Great, now we also support software and hardware issues in this board.
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Registered User
Joined: 1/28/2005
Posts: 6,049
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"Great, now we also support software and hardware issues in this board."
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Some do
Thanks
diceman
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Registered User
Joined: 5/15/2007
Posts: 18
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QUOTE (diceman) "Great, now we also support software and hardware issues in this board."
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Some do
Thanks
diceman
I've done it for a living for 14 years now so it's no big deal. If anyone ever has a question on computers, ask me. It's just a small price for me to pay for all the great telechart and stock questions I get answered by coming here.
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Registered User
Joined: 4/18/2005
Posts: 4,090
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Bigblock
hope I didn't irritate you asking about hardware issues. But I figure if I'm trading frommy computer... and other better traders than myself are trading from theirs they may have a pretty good idea of how this software will work with various hardware configurations.
I wish we had more than the three hand signal icons.
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