A question for the computer gurus

[dave nz]

% wise how much hard disk space should you have, to have your computer running at its optimum? and also what % and under is not enough?

[Bobtheicon]

Actually, if you think about it, the larger your hard drive, the less efficient your computer is. Even if you keep it defragged, there is still a lot of area for that thing to gather up the data you are requesting.

In my opinion, you're better off partitioning your hard drive as much as possible. Keep the OS on the C drive, make a D drive for software, and maybe an E drive for files, and an F drive for temporary files. Maybe even use multiple hard drives.

As far as free space percentage goes, I'd say 20% is a good rule of thumb. But if you keep your temp files deleted, you should be okay with much less free space. Partitioning will make things faster than free space.

Once solid state hard drives take off things will be much different.

[ZoomVT]

+1 for solid state drives.

we just got new servers with solid state drives. FTW!

[Davydave]

Originally Posted by ZoomVT

+1 for solid state drives.

we just got new servers with solid state drives. FTW!

Exactly! Prices starting to come down... these drives will be the norm in a couple of years. Turn on your computer and the operating system is there instantly.

[Dr. Jack]

What are solid state drives?

[Bobtheicon]

Originally Posted by Dr. Jack

What are solid state drives?

They're basically big flash drives. Like the USB sticks people carry around, only bigger. No moving parts. All data is instantly available. I think the only issue has been the number of read/writes to a drive is limited, that and the sizing of the drives. The "no moving parts" thing is what drives the marketing though - no more hard drive crashes!!

[Dr. Jack]

Originally Posted by Bobtheicon

They're basically big flash drives. Like the USB sticks people carry around, only bigger. No moving parts. All data is instantly available. I think the only issue has been the number of read/writes to a drive is limited, that and the sizing of the drives. The "no moving parts" thing is what drives the marketing though - no more hard drive crashes!!

okay thanks!

[Romanowski]

theres no limit to read/writes on solid state

I used to work for EMC, this puppy begins at 3 million dollars

http://www.emc.com/products/series/symmetrix-dmx-4.htm

[Shark23]

Solid state drives have no moving parts, therefore, very unlikely to fail

[dhunter]

Hard drive doesn't effect performance does it? I thought memory is what determines how efficient your computer is

[scr0da]

Originally Posted by dhunter

Hard drive doesn't effect performance does it? I thought memory is what determines how efficient your computer is

HD can slow u down especially if it is running inefficiently (clank clank clank)

[Burgh Brew Crew]

bob put it right. Keep you OS on your C drive. Spend 50 bucks and get a USB drive 250 GB. Store you games/songs/porn etc on this drive. As long as you keep just the basics on you C drive, you can defrag fairly quickly and in the event of a crash you wont scramble to reload. Another bonus is if defragging isnt helping you perfromance you can reformat the C drive. Only do this though, if you have the software to reinstall your OS. As far as percentages that varies depending on the size of you hard drive.