Laptop DiskSpace issues

July 22, 2006 5:41 AM

I have an older (3+ yrs) Dell Inspiron laptop that is running out of disk space (due to music files, tax and bookkeeping software programs).

Would I be better off purchasing an external device to shift the music to or should I take it in and have a professional insert more memory? If external, do you have any recommendations? I don't want to drop more than $250 on this, if possible.

posted by blackkar to computers & internet (13 comments total)

blackkar...

You need a larger hard drive, not more memory.

$250 is adequate to buy a monster hard drive these days. There are scores of choices for external storage. If you have a USB2 or Firewire connection on your Dell, you can use external storage with virtually no penalty in performance. It's amazing how fast the interfaces operate. If you only have USB1, I'd go for a larger internal drive.

You may want to examine performing some tweaks on your system. I found a nice little shareware program recently called WinDirStat (google it) that shows how your hard drive is structured and allows you to see how much of the space is taken up by your MP3 collection, for instance.

A little time spent discovering how/why/what is behind your lack of disk space might be a good investment before going off any buying a hard drive.
posted by FauxScot at 5:53 AM on July 22, 2006

It depends on how you use it. If its something that doesn't really leave the house too much then you might want to just get an IDE hard drive and an inexpensive USB and/or firewire external enclosure. A big hard drive shouldn't cost you more than $100 and the enclosure shouldn't be more than $50.

If you actually take it out with you places and don't want the added bulk, and power cord, of the external drive, then upgrading the laptops hard drive, not memory (RAM), would be the way to go. If this is just for music though, I'd suggest going with a fairly large capacity iPod or other portable media device.
posted by ChazB at 5:56 AM on July 22, 2006

I bought a new external hard drive for my laptop which was running out of space. I think i got a firewire 250GB drive for something like $150 with a $50 rebate. Here is what I did. I went to dealnews.com's storage category and added the RSS feed to my RSS reader. I read it for a week or two to get an idea of what hard drive prices were. Once I had a loose idea, I just waited for one that seemed in my price range. I wound up getting a drive + case combo (as in, you put it together - there were instructions on the site and people had posted to the site saying that it wasn't too tough to do) from TigerDirect which had a $50 rebate attached to it. There are a lot of stupid hoops to jump through with rebates, so don't get something that has one unless you can do the rebate tango, but I have been pleased with my drive which I basically turn on once a week, do a huge backup and then turn back off again. I'd keep it running all the time except the fan is a little whiny. I second FauxScott's advice to figure out what is taking up all your space and figuring out of you need a backup drive or one for day to day use.
posted by jessamyn at 5:59 AM on July 22, 2006

Wow, excellent answers. I'm pretty sure it is the tax software that's sucking up space (I have several years worth of data and didn't go crazy on RAM upgrades when I purchased the laptop), and the music is not a day to day need, so an external drive should be fine. I have a 3G Ipod that is becoming unreliable and isn't large enough to carry all of my music in anyway (hence not wanting to pony up too much cash in case I have to replace that too).

Thanks for the correct terminology - I hate walking into stores and looking like an idiot (and I obviously can't google a correct answer if I use the wrong keywords), it's much easier when you are faceless name.
posted by blackkar at 6:11 AM on July 22, 2006

In addition to an external hard drive, you can ask Windows to compress the existing files. XP freed 5 Gb on my Inspiron a few weeks ago (I had less than 1 Gb left). Of course music and image files won't compress but a lot of (largely invisible) stuff does.
posted by elgilito at 6:13 AM on July 22, 2006

You might find things more convenient in the long run to buy a DVD burner for the laptop, and offload your tax info onto DVDs labeled 2002, 2003, etc.

At 4.7 GB a disk, you can keep a lot of important archival info outside the computer where crashes, accidental reformatting etc. won't put it at risk.

Watch the deal sites as jessamyn recommends, you can probably land one for < $50.
However, first find out what's taking up all your space. Tax data files actually aren't all that huge. You probably need the loving ministrations of Crap Cleaner (free, google it) to clean up temp files and allow you to delete all the crapware Dell preinstalled on your drive.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 6:54 AM on July 22, 2006

I have several years worth of data and didn't go crazy on RAM upgrades

You seem to be confusing memory (RAM) with storage (hard drive). Make sure you know the difference, so you don't waste money on your solution.

A hard drive is a rectangular box thing that holds all your files and data in permanent storage that doesn't go away when you turn the computer off. Modern computers typically have hard drive storage capacities measured in GigaBytes (GB), such as 120GB.

RAM, or Random-Access Memory, is stored in little chips. This is the stuff that makes it easier to run multiple programs at once, and does not have anything to do with your "stuff," like music and tax records. Buying more memory, or RAM, would not give you more space for music files or tax records. Modern computers typically have MegaBytes (MB) of RAM, such as 512MB.
posted by odinsdream at 7:04 AM on July 22, 2006

blakkar, I just went into a computer store and asked for an external hard drive and got something that holds 350 gigs for about $150. You plug it into the laptop, and the computer "sees" it as a new drive and you can just drag all your big files onto it and then unplug it. Not just good for storage but for making sure you have your stuff backed up in case your laptop dies or crashes or something.
posted by CunningLinguist at 8:18 AM on July 22, 2006

I keep my iTunes music library on an external drive without any hassles at all. As long as it's plugged in to USB and running when I start up iTunes, it works great. I'll be trying it as a networked drive attached to another machine on my home network soon, and expect it will work just fine there as well.
posted by lhauser at 8:40 AM on July 22, 2006

I have an oldish Inspiron myself (2+ years) and bought an 160GB Iomega external (USB 2.0) hard drive for it several months ago. I use it both for entire backups of my 60GB internal hard drive once a week and for external storage of music files, etc.

You can buy either an internal laptop hard drive or an external one as mentioned above, it just depends on what your needs are. You will get much more space for your $ buying an external HDD as internal laptop drives are quite expensive, but $250 can get you just about as much space as you'll probably ever need in either format.

My advice to you would be to check out the deals websites around the 'net (Fatwallet/Slickdeals/BensBargains/Dealhack/Bargainshare/Gottadeal) and find yourself a good deal on an internal laptop drive or an external USB2.0 or Firewire drive. For instance, just skimming the Fatwallet forums I see a 160GB Samsung internal drive for $99 at Microcenter. That's a solid deal. Alternatively there are very well priced external drives. I see a Maxtor 200GB External for around $130, 500GB for about $250, etc.

Happy hunting!
posted by jckll at 9:24 AM on July 22, 2006

I'd reemphasize what cklennon said. Get an external hard drive and use it to back up your internal drive as well as for the extra storage. All hard drives eventually fail, it's not a matter of if but when.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 10:15 AM on July 22, 2006

With a 3 year old Dell laptop, odds are good (if it's like mine anyway) that you only have a USB 1.0 port on board, so you'll need a PCMCIA USB 2.0/firewire card to really speed up file transfer. My USB 2.0 card has an additional problem of interfering with my PCMCIA wireless card.

But yes, an external hard drive is way cheaper and quite convenient.
posted by cardboard at 3:17 PM on July 22, 2006

With hard disk storage now costing less than $0.30/gigabyte, hard disk drives are now a cheaper way to do archival backup than CD-ROMs. It won't be terribly long before they're a better buy even than DVDs.

Also worth considering: all digital media have a finite data storage life. Might be five years, might be twenty - it's a crapshoot. Not only do the actual bits on the media degrade, but media formats become obsolete; anybody tried finding an 8" floppy drive lately?

On the other hand, digital information by its very nature lends itself to being perfectly copied. Couple that with the fact that last year's files are always smaller than this year's, and it's pretty easy to see that the right way to keep all your digital data - photos, music, tax records, anything you might conceivably want later on - is on live storage attached to your computer du jour, mirrored or at least regularly backed up in toto to another similar device.

Get in the habit of doing that, and you won't be stuck trying to find one of those quaint little "CD-ROM reader" thingies that were so popular around the turn of the century when you're old and wrinkled and want to look at your wedding photos again.
posted by flabdablet at 12:03 AM on July 23, 2006