External Hard Drives

[Mr Motivator]

My laptop has 224mb of ram and 16gig of hard drive. Now, I want to *x-ibit voice* 'pimp my system' *pinches top of shirt sleve*.

Rather than get a new computer for my birthday, I'm gonna get 250gig of external USB hard drive :)

So, two questions;

1. What are your external hard drives like?

2. Can I set my laptop to use its current memory as RAM? I.e, Have 16gig of RAM (Y) ?

Sam

[Swize]

Hmmm ime not to sure if you can turn a HDD in to RAM ive never herd of it being done before.

But external HDD's if your gonning to be connecting it via usb its not going to be that fast at usb 1.1,un less its usb 2.0 but ive never used that so would no no the speed (Y)

Personly i think you should look in to something like THIS as its a firewire connectin giving you the extra speed which could be nice :P .

Or this HDD firewire personly this is the one i would go for :) .

Sam

EDIT: Opps ive just realised usb 2.0 is fater than firewire

400 Mbps (FireWire) / 480 Mbps (Hi-Speed USB)

Are you using usb 2.0 ??

Edited July 14, 2005 by samthebiker

[Mr Motivator]

Hmmm ime not to sure if you can turn a HDD in to RAM ive never herd of it being done before.

But external HDD's if your gonning to be connecting it via usb its not going to be that fast at usb 1.1,un less its usb 2.0 but ive never used that so would no no the speed  (Y)

Personly i think you should look in to something like THIS as its a firewire connectin giving you the extra speed which could be nice :P .

Or this HDD firewire personly this is the one i would go for :) .

Sam

EDIT: Opps ive just realised usb 2.0 is fater than firewire

400 Mbps (FireWire) / 480 Mbps (Hi-Speed USB)

Are you using usb 2.0 ??

←

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B...4388142-4564604

Thats the one im getting which is USB2.0 but it says its compatable with USB1.1. Whats USB 2.0 anyway?

Sam

[Dai the Socket]

Erm. External Hdd's are ace. I've got a 150gb LaCie one. Same as Jon MacK's.

It's pretty cool. Connected via Firewire though, but that only means copying stuff over is uber uber fast, you won't tell much difference between USB 2.0 and Firewire.

You can't have that much ram. You need to buy Ram cards.

Read: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/ram.htm.

I dont't 100% get it but I know you can't do it. Put it this way. My computer will fit 4gb of Ram.

To get 4gb of ram, I need a wallet with £1000 in. Then I can buy 4gb of ram. (Y)

They're like £400 per 1gb card.

Or a bit cheaper if they're a shop's own make or whatever.

They're Mac Prices anyway. Nick

[Swize]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B...4388142-4564604

Thats the one im getting which is USB2.0 but it says its compatable with USB1.1. Whats USB 2.0 anyway?

Sam

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USB 1.1 and USB 2.0, basicly USB 2.0 is faster than 1.1 there bouth compatibul , but if you usb ports are 1.1 and you have a firewire port use the firewire pot insted.

If you have usb 2.0 ports use them .

Sam (Y)

ASKING A MATE ON MSN.

about coverting hdd space into ram.

in short yes you can, but the comp wont use it like physical ram because its soo slow compared......

its called virtual memory and your computer will actualy do it automatically although you can turn it up

Edited July 14, 2005 by samthebiker

[tank_rider]

its not compatability thats the problem, its the fact that it will take ages to put large files onto it. I would look to get a PCMCIA card that is either USB 2, or firewire to make using the external hard drive bareable.

In terms of using your hard drive for virtual memory, i would say go for a max of 1GB virtual memory, as your laptop will have a 5400rpm hard drive in it, and therefore would be relatively slow.

[Mr Motivator]

USB 1.1 and USB 2.0, basicly USB 2.0 is faster than 1.1 there bouth compatibul , but if you usb ports are 1.1 and you have a firewire port use the firewire pot insted.

If you have usb 2.0 ports use them .

Sam (Y)

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I've just got 4 bog standard USB ports I think. Does this mean I cant use it?!!?

Sam