Fat 32 file conversion on hard drive,is it worth the effort or is this a can of worms?
I',m running out of space and toying with uninstalling a lot of the kids software and using the compresion to free up some more space.
Then again I might be better off to just to install a second hard drive.
Could use advice.
Laird
[This message has been edited by uglyelk (edited November 27, 2001).]
file compression
Moderator: Scott Danziger
file compression
Laird-sama,
"You are never too thin, never too rich, never have a fast enough processor, never have enough RAM and never have enough drive space." - Lee Darrow
Buy a second drive. With 20 gig drives going for the prices that ther are and 40's not much more - load up!
My top system in my home office has a native 40GB and an external firewire 80GB along with a DVD-Ram drive. All but the 80GB came WITH the system (God I LOVE Macs!) and that drive ran me about $400 beter than 18 months ago.
With EIDE drives for IBM systems running in the dirt-cheap ranges, my suggestion would be to load up on drive space.
Best of luck,
Lee Darrow, C.Ht.
"You are never too thin, never too rich, never have a fast enough processor, never have enough RAM and never have enough drive space." - Lee Darrow
Buy a second drive. With 20 gig drives going for the prices that ther are and 40's not much more - load up!
My top system in my home office has a native 40GB and an external firewire 80GB along with a DVD-Ram drive. All but the 80GB came WITH the system (God I LOVE Macs!) and that drive ran me about $400 beter than 18 months ago.
With EIDE drives for IBM systems running in the dirt-cheap ranges, my suggestion would be to load up on drive space.
Best of luck,
Lee Darrow, C.Ht.
file compression
Hello Laird.
If you are thinking "maybe" a second hard drive, then get at least this one <a href="http://www.compusa.com/products/product ... 78200">for less than $100US</a> or one double that size for a little more. It'll last you at least a few more years, and maybe even beyond.
I also highly recommend the Fat32, far superior to Fat16 and about what it was touted to be when Windows 98 first came out. Use compression too. Fat32 automatically partitions hard drives into one humoungous partition and uses much smaller cluster sizes as well, thereby allowing you to save more files on the same size disk than you could before; especially if you have many small files.
BTW, remove the old drive, take it right out of the case. Load your operating system onto the new drive as well as all your other goodies too. There is a jumper on the former master hard drive that needs to be move to make it the secondary hard drive, put it in as your secondary drive, and you (most likely) won't loose any data from the original disk.
After you reload the olds software onto the new drive, except windows..., and you find the new drive is plenty large for your needs, take the old one out permanently. Newer drives ARE faster, especially the 7200RPM models. However if a slower drive is on the same cable the faster drive will only run as fast as the slower one.
When that prescription is followed, PC owners often think they have a newer much faster machine than before, and it may be much faster too.
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Allen Moulton from Uechi-ryu Etcetera
If you are thinking "maybe" a second hard drive, then get at least this one <a href="http://www.compusa.com/products/product ... 78200">for less than $100US</a> or one double that size for a little more. It'll last you at least a few more years, and maybe even beyond.
I also highly recommend the Fat32, far superior to Fat16 and about what it was touted to be when Windows 98 first came out. Use compression too. Fat32 automatically partitions hard drives into one humoungous partition and uses much smaller cluster sizes as well, thereby allowing you to save more files on the same size disk than you could before; especially if you have many small files.
BTW, remove the old drive, take it right out of the case. Load your operating system onto the new drive as well as all your other goodies too. There is a jumper on the former master hard drive that needs to be move to make it the secondary hard drive, put it in as your secondary drive, and you (most likely) won't loose any data from the original disk.
After you reload the olds software onto the new drive, except windows..., and you find the new drive is plenty large for your needs, take the old one out permanently. Newer drives ARE faster, especially the 7200RPM models. However if a slower drive is on the same cable the faster drive will only run as fast as the slower one.
When that prescription is followed, PC owners often think they have a newer much faster machine than before, and it may be much faster too.
------------------
Allen Moulton from Uechi-ryu Etcetera
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Arnie Elkins
- Posts: 44
- Joined: Mon Oct 08, 2001 6:01 am
- Location: Richmond, VA, USA
file compression
Have to agree with most of what was said already. Hard drives are dirt cheap. I saw a 40gig drive in one of the ads in the paper this weekend for $69.99. Of course, Fat32 is definitely a Good Thing, as it is much more efficient. Personally, I don't use compression, as the gain for me has been minimal with so many files being already compressed these days, and there is a slight performance hit. At any rate, with drives being so inexpensive, it is most often a better idea to get more space rather than playing with compression. But whatever drives you have, be sure they are running Fat32, or NTFS if you are running NT/2000/XP.
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Guest
file compression
Thank you all for the excellent advice.
I now have 5.5 gb of unused storage space.
& yes I will order that second hardrive.
Laird
I now have 5.5 gb of unused storage space.
& yes I will order that second hardrive.
Laird
file compression
Microsoft has a very good discussion about Fat vs NTFS at http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q140/3/65.asp . Fat32 behaves closer to NTFS in cluster size than it does to Fat. and http://web.ukonline.co.uk/cook/Clustsize.htm as a good one on Fat32
Vs NTFS. Just look how much the largest cluster size on Win3.1 and Win 95 occupy for a file the size of just 1 byte, 256 kilobytes. That means a lot of small graphics can eat away your Fat hard drive space in no time.
Another at http://www.healthtology.com/computerguys/FAQS/clustersize.htm
BTW, NTFS stands for NT File System and Fat stands for File Allocation Table
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Allen Moulton from Uechi-ryu Etcetera
Vs NTFS. Just look how much the largest cluster size on Win3.1 and Win 95 occupy for a file the size of just 1 byte, 256 kilobytes. That means a lot of small graphics can eat away your Fat hard drive space in no time.
Another at http://www.healthtology.com/computerguys/FAQS/clustersize.htm
BTW, NTFS stands for NT File System and Fat stands for File Allocation Table
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Allen Moulton from Uechi-ryu Etcetera
