External harddrives...

[conuly]

After my rant about computer obsolesence, many people, here and in real life, suggested an external hard drive.

Now, those aren't cheap, but they're not so expensive that they'd be impossible to cadge one as a joint christmas/birthday present. From my mom. Jenn's still paying off this laptop, I think. Or my uncle. Or begging $5 gift certificates off of all of you, though if I did that I'd rather get more user picture space, and anyway, most of youse guys don't have any money anyway, and I'm horrible at sending out christmas presents (I still have scarves from two years ago that I need to send out, and I think I'll have to get everybody's address again in order to do so), so it wouldn't be a fair exchange, so I wouldn't do that.

Anyway, that said, I wouldn't bother wanting one of this if all it offered is extra storage space. I want that, I can invest in some blank CDs and save everything to disk. Disc? Whatever. Point is, that's not worth the money. However, if it would actually speed up my computer, it *is* worth the money.

So now you know my question. Answer it, amabo te.

Comments

[moggymania.livejournal.com]

External, no, it wouldn't speed up your computer -- they're slower (due to the cabling type) than an internal is. Replacing the internal drive with one that has a higher RPM might.

If you can get more RAM in the computer, though, that might make a difference, depending on how much you have. (If you have 128mb or less, then it would make a difference if you went to 256mb or 512mb.)

[conuly]

RPM? I know, I could look this up, I should....

[moggymania.livejournal.com]

Revolutions Per Minute -- how fast it spins. Faster spin = faster access, generally.

[conuly]

Thanks.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

An external hard drive should only be used to backup your files. Don't try to use it as the sole storage location.

... bad things happen.

[ratkrycek.livejournal.com]

I agree. Ext HD's are great, but only as bakup/work space. I backup the really vital stuff to both my ext HD and DVDs, just to be really safe.

RAM is good to get, definitely. And a processor chip upgrade, so I'm told, is also good.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

Disc is a flat round spinny thing. Disk is an abbreviation for diskette.

Disk/disc

[pne.livejournal.com]

The two versions I heard were "Disks were invented in America, discs in Europe [or Japan]" (e.g. the CD, invented by Philip (http://www.philips.nl/), is a Compact Disc) and "Disks are magnetic, discs are optical".

My uneducated guess is that it was originally the first difference (Philips, in Europe, used the European spelling for CDs) and was later reinterpreted/generalised as the second.

The second is probably easier to remember: hard disk = magnetic = K; compact disc and digital video/versatile discs = optical = C. (Though apparently DVD officially stands for nothing in particular, much like SAT or PHP.)

[moggymania.livejournal.com]

External, no, it wouldn't speed up your computer -- they're slower (due to the cabling type) than an internal is. Replacing the internal drive with one that has a higher RPM might.

If you can get more RAM in the computer, though, that might make a difference, depending on how much you have. (If you have 128mb or less, then it would make a difference if you went to 256mb or 512mb.)

[conuly]

RPM? I know, I could look this up, I should....

[moggymania.livejournal.com]

Revolutions Per Minute -- how fast it spins. Faster spin = faster access, generally.

[conuly]

Thanks.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

An external hard drive should only be used to backup your files. Don't try to use it as the sole storage location.

... bad things happen.

[ratkrycek.livejournal.com]

I agree. Ext HD's are great, but only as bakup/work space. I backup the really vital stuff to both my ext HD and DVDs, just to be really safe.

RAM is good to get, definitely. And a processor chip upgrade, so I'm told, is also good.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

Disc is a flat round spinny thing. Disk is an abbreviation for diskette.

Disk/disc

[pne.livejournal.com]

The two versions I heard were "Disks were invented in America, discs in Europe [or Japan]" (e.g. the CD, invented by Philip (http://www.philips.nl/), is a Compact Disc) and "Disks are magnetic, discs are optical".

My uneducated guess is that it was originally the first difference (Philips, in Europe, used the European spelling for CDs) and was later reinterpreted/generalised as the second.

The second is probably easier to remember: hard disk = magnetic = K; compact disc and digital video/versatile discs = optical = C. (Though apparently DVD officially stands for nothing in particular, much like SAT or PHP.)