laptop running out of space

woodstock

woodstock

Final Approach
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Hi

My main laptop now has 13% usable space left - lotta photos! How hard is it to add more space to it - would that be a second hard drive, or what? Or would it just be better to move some of my photos to another storage unit?

My secondary laptop really needs more RAM and it's got a smaller hard drive - I could temporarily put some photos there, but that isn't a perfect long term solution.

How much free space do you want on a laptop, anyway?
 
If you choose to buy a new internal drive, I've got a program (Acronis TrueImage) that will copy everything off your old drive to the new, so you'll just boot up on the new drive, and you'll have lots of space.

We could also give better answers if we knew:

What kind of laptop you have; and
What size is the current disk drive?
 
Ditto on the 10% minimum free space.

For the last few years, I've used Buffalo drives on two separate computers. Their backup application is easy to set up and will operate automatically at a pre-selected time when you're connected.

This one is a 500GB Buffalo drive from Microcenter for only $110 after a small rebate. I paid that much for a 160GB two years ago.

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0265238
 
Thanks guys. It's a Toshiba Satellite and I can't remember the size now - maybe 80GB? I'll check when I get home.
 
Burn the photos onto CDs or DVDs. Verify they got there. Erase from hard drive.

Problem solved for a few dollars, assuming you have a fairly recent laptop.

Use the money you saved to finish up your PPL :)
 
wsuffa said:
Agree.

Or be retentive like I am - offload to an external drive AND burn them to a DVD, both. I do that especially for the ones that are one-of-a-kind.
Click to expand...

Or keep them on two separate computers and a network storage system that has 4 drives in a RAID 5 configuration. Really should burn to DVD and put in safe deposit box in case the house burns down.

Paranoia is a healthy thing at times.
 
If my house burns down, I can assure you the least of my worries are my photos and laptop! but point taken, thanks...

I think I might just move the "least desirable" of my photos to storage (I never delete any photo) and just leave the ones I'd use on a more regular basis on the computer. Sounds like the best solution, thanks!
 
Beth, just get a little external USB hard drive. I have a 150 GB Maxtor that's the size of a pack of cigarettes and cost 70 bucks. Drag 'em over and delete off the laptop. It's breathed new life into my 3 year old bottom of the line Dell, which holds only 40 gigs.
 
Ken Ibold said:
which holds only 40 gigs.
Click to expand...
I still shake my head when I see things like that. I had an original IBM PC (tricked out to 640k ram, and two (count 'em) 360 kb floppies) and when I put in a full height 5 meg hard drive I thought I had all the space in the world....

-Skip
 
Skip Miller said:
I still shake my head when I see things like that. I had an original IBM PC (tricked out to 640k ram, and two (count 'em) 360 kb floppies) and when I put in a full height 5 meg hard drive I thought I had all the space in the world....

-Skip
Click to expand...
Recalling my first computer, a Mac Plus... it ran off two floppy drives, 1.4mb each. No hard drive. When I did buy an external drive, it was $700 or a LaCie 40mb.

Things have changed.
 
Ghery said:
Or keep them on two separate computers and a network storage system that has 4 drives in a RAID 5 configuration. Really should burn to DVD and put in safe deposit box in case the house burns down.
Click to expand...
...and then take it to Best Buy so they can install the bigger HD. :rofl:


-Rich
 
rpadula said:
...and then take it to Best Buy so they can install the bigger HD. :rofl:


-Rich
Click to expand...

Not me, man. The desktop (well, tower) system I'm using right now was built from the ground up here, at home. Parts came from over 1/2 dozen different sources. Upgrades are made by me. Now, my laptop, that's another story. Haven't done a thing to it other than add memory and software. But it isn't my prime machine at home, so it will take longer to fill its hard drive. If I need more disk space in this machine, I'll just buy another drive and stick it in the chassis. There's room for several more (and power supply capacity to handle them all with capacity to spare). Heck, the MB will support RAID if I wanted to go that route.
 
Ghery said:
Heck, the MB will support RAID if I wanted to go that route.
Click to expand...
Almost positively software RAID. They often make it look like hardware RAID but it is not. The real test is to boot a linux live cd on a system like that. You'll see two hard drives even though you made a RAID-1 array.

Although considering the super duper processors you guys build these days you can basically get away with software raid in certain applications.
 
jesse said:
Almost positively software RAID. They often make it look like hardware RAID but it is not. The real test is to boot a linux live cd on a system like that. You'll see two hard drives even though you made a RAID-1 array.

Although considering the super duper processors you guys build these days you can basically get away with software raid in certain applications.
Click to expand...

Not sure about that, Jesse. ASUS P5W DH MB. SATA interface for the drives. Doesn't really matter, the network storage system that backs up 4 computers around here has 4 250 GByte drives in a RAID 5 configuration. All 4 machines are catching up right now. Lights are flashing away on that box.
 
hey, here are my specs:

Satellite M45-S355 (Toshiba)
100GB hard drive - woo, do I have a lot of stuff on it then.
 
KennyFlys said:
Recalling my first computer, a Mac Plus... it ran off two floppy drives, 1.4mb each. No hard drive. When I did buy an external drive, it was $700 or a LaCie 40mb.
Click to expand...

Actually Kenny, the Mac Plus was still in the age of 800Kb floppy drives. You must have come into the game a little later than me, I can remember when the Jasmine 40MB hard drive was a STEAL at $999! :eek: :rofl:

I was so amazed the first time a 1-GB *hard drive* was hooked to my computer in 1993 that I took a screen shot. Here, a scant 15 years later, my *laptop* has twice that much in *RAM*. Ah, how things change. :)
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Actually Kenny, the Mac Plus was still in the age of 800Kb floppy drives. You must have come into the game a little later than me, I can remember when the Jasmine 40MB hard drive was a STEAL at $999! :eek: :rofl:

I was so amazed the first time a 1-GB *hard drive* was hooked to my computer in 1993 that I took a screen shot. Here, a scant 15 years later, my *laptop* has twice that much in *RAM*. Ah, how things change. :)
Click to expand...
That's nothing. I recall helping my dad choose his first "personal" computer for his accounting business. He had a choice first between a CP/M Altos or a Zenith PC-DOS / CP/M Z-100. I recommended the Z-100 because there was a chance that this new-fangled PC-DOS might make it. THen, it was a choice between the two Winchester drives available. 5MB or 10MB. As I recall, we were talking about $200/MB!
 
I say buy two larger hard drives. Use some program (Acronis or Casper) to clone the present drive to one of the new drives, and put that inside the laptop.

Next, clone the new drive inside the laptop to the second new drive, and do that again every week or whenever you make important changes to the system (install expensive software, etc.).

Finally, open an account with Mozy.com, FilesAnywhere.com, Box.net, or any of the other zillion online backup/storage sites, and back up at least your documents offsite.

Why do I say this? Because the drive inside the laptop won't last forever. I prefer replacing a drive when it gets that full. If it only has 13 percent free, then you probably haven't defragged it in a while, so it's been working harder, as well.

As for the clone, I always keep a recent clone of my laptop drives right in the case with the laptop. If the internal drive goes while I'm on the road, five minutes and a screwdriver gets me back in business. I use Casper for this (on Windows systems, at least), but others prefer Acronis or other software. Whatever you choose, there's nothing like having a recent clone to ease the pain of a hard drive meltdown at 3:00 a.m. in East Nowhere.

As for the online storage, it's so cheap these days I can't think of a good reason not to use it. It keeps your data safe even if a fire or flood destroys your local backups, or if your cloned drive gets stolen along with the laptop. Just choose a reputable company that is security-conscious and is not likely to go belly-up tomorrow.

Rich
 
Kent reminds me of the accountant at the shop I worked for in Jackson Hole. He thought it was great to have a hard drive that matched the footprint of the Mac 128 he had. It was a whopping 5mb and weighed about 15 lbs.
 
Youse kids. Two floppy drives of 92K (formatted to 88K), 4Mhz CPU 48MB RAM, for $1599.00, less monitor ($500) and printer ($500). 10MB winchester hard drive was $25,000.

The company that became Novell brought out a "web" to share that because no company coudl afford to buy more htan one.
 
Is still have a couple of 8" drives - and the disks to match (Inmac!!!)

I later got an H-100, and built the drive controller on a breadboard.

Showing my age.
 
KennyFlys said:
Kent reminds me of the accountant at the shop I worked for in Jackson Hole. He thought it was great to have a hard drive that matched the footprint of the Mac 128 he had. It was a whopping 5mb and weighed about 15 lbs.
Click to expand...

Haha... Yeah, I had the first SCSI drive - The Apple HD20SC. Yep, 20 megs! (IIRC, it was $3,000 in 1986.) It also took about 10 full seconds to spin the drive up. Yeow!

I miss the jet-spooling-up sound it made though... And I really should get the Mac Plus I have now out of the closet and try to bring it back to life. :)
 
I am putting files on Maxtor right now - and then I start deleting! At least the practice shots..
 
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