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Swap files, Gigabytes, and MP3's? What language is this?Sep 20 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Big is now pretty cheap.
Are you wondering how big your next hard drive should be? This is just one of those issues that every computer user struggles to address, either when they buy a new hard drive or a whole new computer system. Since most of us only need a new hard drive every 2 years or so, we're always a bit behind the current size and may not know how much we can get for a certain price. So I'm here to help! Hard drives need to be big enough for Windows (or other OS) and its 'swap file', all your programs and saved files, all your future programs and saved files, and finally a buffer area to account for growing pains. Sound like a lot? It can be, but then again hard drive space is more abundant and cheaper now than ever before! First, a primer on hard drive abbreviations. GB is the standard measurement for hard drives today, which stands for gigabyte (pronounced "giga-bite"). MB is a smaller measurement used primarily by programs that you buy in the store (such as "Program X requires 400MB of hard drive space"), and MB stands for megabytes (again, pronounced "mega-bite"). I've explained all of this in more detail in the last section, but for now, 1000 MB's = 1 GB. Keep this in mind as you read further. How much for Windows and its 'swap file'? Windows itself is very large and greedy, but your main enemy is the company who put together your computer! Whether it's Compaq, HP, or Dell, they all put extra junk (they call them 'vendor-specific utilities') on your hard drive in addition to Windows and its 'swap file'. Generally, Windows will take up about 400MB to 500MB and a good sized 'swap file' is another 300MB (for worry-free computing). This still isn't a full Gigabyte. That extra junk, however, will push you to or just over that 1 GB edge of used space (assuming the worst). Keep in mind, this is space that you can't use on your hard drive from the get go. In other words, if your computer has a 20GB hard drive, you will only have 19GB of free space when you buy it new! Actually, because hard drives are so darn huge now, this isn't as big of an issue as it used to be. Don't sweat this, but be aware of it... How much for buffer? The average program requires about 400MB of free hard drive space for a typical installation. Some require less, some much more, this is just the average. Considering that and the current hard drive market, you'll probably want a full 1GB of buffer zone, if not more. This will ensure that you can meet the minimum installation requirements for at least 2, maybe 3 average programs before you run out of space. Since this is your safety buffer, assume these average programs will be unexpected; as in don't use this buffer for programs that you intend to get! Some users are actually very careful about their use of hard drive space, while others buy a CD-RW drive just for making sure they don't over-bloat their hard drive. If you intend to be a careful person, keep track of your hard drive free space, and perform appropriate back-ups, you can get by without a buffer. If, however, you know very little about these tasks and prefer not to get involved, you will need a buffer! Tabulating the results... This brings us to an 'already used space' of about 2GB! 1GB without buffer. Surprising as this sounds, even today, 2GB already used on your hard drive is minimal. You probably won't notice that it's missing, provided you follow my guidelines below. For those who are saying to themselves "this guy is crazy, I need all the space I can get," I say to you "then get the biggest hard drive you can find!" Although my 2GB chunk assumes the worst and probably won't happen to you, expect it anyway - you should be able to do without 2GB and still be happy with your remaining free space. How much hard drive space total should I get? Every computer user needs programs. Without them, our computers are useless because we can't do anything with them! In the next section below, I've attempted to separate various types of users and how much space they will likely need. As many computer users already know, playing 'guess the hard drive space' is always an uncertain game, because you don't want to pay for too much space now, but you don't want to be stuck with too little space 6 months from now. If you're a first-time computer buyer (not many of you left out there!) just trying to figure it all out, 20GB is a nice starting size. At this point, I'm not willing to suggest any less if you have no idea how much hard drive space you need, but read below before accepting my 'blanket size' of 20GB. Minimum Business User I use the term 'business user' to describe someone who takes a minimalist, no-nonsense approach to using their computer. Whether you take your multi-million dollar accounts home with you to work on, run your own home-business, or just use your computer to surf the web and e-mail, you may be surprised to know that your programs take the least amount of hard drive space out of all other users. Your saved files can get pretty big, but not enormously so (it's NOTHING compared to computer games!). Sure, even a business user may indulge in something like 3D Lanscaping or Family Tree Maker Deluxe, but these are business tools! Mostly you'll be using Microsoft Productivity Suite 2000 and Turbo Tax 2000 and other such programs. However, a business user is also the first person who would benefit from upgrading to Windows XP Pro, which is a big hard drive hog. Even if you don't, you'll enjoy the extra space :) Recommended: 10GB to 20GB hard drive size Average Family - Complete with 2.5 children :) Families always require more space than they need. Why? Ok, maybe you and your spouse are minimalist, no-nonsense computer users, but your kids may not be! Research papers, Encarta 2000 CD's, e-mails from friends, music MP3's, digital camera pictures, computer games, the list goes on and on for most teenage users! Homework, school-related programs, and e-mail are pretty easy on space, but those last three - MP3's, pics, and games - suck up GB's faster than 5 teenage boys can scarf a 9" pizza! Grade schoolers are easier on space, especially since 95% of computer games are for kids 13-years and older, but don't underestimate the ability of a family to fill the space given! That said, even if you (or your parents) don't need much, allow for about 3GB for 'family space' (web surfing and e-mailing and other programs that everyone uses), and 4GB to 7GB per person! Thus our average family of two parents and 2.5 children would need between 21GB and 34.5GB of hard drive space for everything they need. Recommended: 3GB 'family space' + 4GB to 7GB per person Computer Gamer There is no other single program that requires more hard drive space than the computer game. The average computer game needs about 500MB of hard drive space, and many games allow you to install the entire CD or CDs onto your hard drive. Baldur's Gate II, for instance, uses over 3GB for a full install! Add to this large save game files, user-created mods, downloaded patches, and other 'stuff' like skins and cheat programs and you can kiss your old 8GB hard drive goodbye! If you've been into computer games for longer than a year, you probably have a stack or two of games just waiting to be (fully) installed on your new hard drive. But wait, there's more! A new hard drive will also have to accommodate the future games you intend to buy, which will naturally require even more hard drive space than today's games. We're probably about 6 months away from every game coming on two CDs or more instead of just one. Recommended: 30GB to 50GB hard drive size Music Lover OR Visual Lover Do you download massive amounts of MP3's and keep a full CD's worth of WAV files for burning your own music CDs at all times? Then you are a music lover! Do you take hundreds of pictures every week with your digital camera and edit them and/or make home movies imported from your digital camcorder? Then you are a visual lover! Which ever one you are, you will need MASSIVE amounts of hard drive space. MP3's are compressed audio files, but they tend to collect quickly enough that several hundred can use up several GB's, not to mention a full CDs worth of WAV files is 650 to 700MB right there. Digital pictures can be up to a few MB's each, more if uncompressed, and archiving them uses even more. Digital video is the worst culprit, though, often requiring 1GB to 2GB for just one hour of MPEG-quality video! And we all know how little an hour of video can seem when you're having fun with a digital camcorder :) Also note that if you are a music lover AND a visual lover, double this! Recommended: 30GB to 60GB for editing programs and MP3's/pics/MPEG video If you are a combo-user, such as a family computer with one user being a music lover, you will need nothing less than a 40GB hard drive. You can also add a second hard drive later for cheaper than a big one all at once, and a CD-RW drive is VERY useful for keeping all those files from becoming a problem. These recommendations of mine may sound like a lot, but as I said before, hard drive space is cheaper than ever. You can now walk into a randomly picked Best Buy and walk out with a 20GB secondary hard drive for only $100 (or less!), and they'll even install it for you for about another $60 (overpriced but convenient). The average computer sold comes with about 30GB now, compared to about 8GB just 18 months ago. And if all you need is a bigger hard drive, you can also select a custom set-up either in a superstore (like CompUSA) or online with Dell or Gateway and order a larger hard drive or two smaller ones. Metric vs. Binary - Measuring Size Warning! Math below! Back when computers took up whole rooms, the only people who used or worked on them were computer specialists. As such, they developed a certain lingo that didn't have to be perfect because they knew what the lingo meant. Thus they used metric abbreviations for binary measurements of 'bytes' (one byte is roughly enough space to store a few keystrokes from your keyboard) - they observed that 2^10 (or 1024) was close to 1,000 so the metric system was used. Kilobyte meant 1024 bytes, Megabyte meant 1024 kilobytes, Gigabyte meant 1024 Megabytes, and so on... Fast forward to today, when computers are mainstream and every teenage 'sales associate' coughs up these metric/binary words on a daily basis. Well, technically those computer specialists from long ago were wrong, there just wasn't any binary system to replace metric. But today's hard drive manufacturers are covered legally because, according to the metric system still in use, a kilobyte is only 1,000 bytes, not 1024 bytes. Construing this further, they argued that one Gigabyte is actually only 1,000,000,000 (billion) bytes or 10^9 bytes, regardless of the fact that the computer counts one Gigabyte as 1,073,741,824 bytes or 2^30 bytes. When buying a one Gigabyte hard drive then, you only lose about 73MB due to the whole metric vs. binary error. However, 73MB per one GB really add up, totaling a loss of just over 2GB on a 30GB hard drive! Thus most consumers think something is wrong when they buy a computer with a 30GB hard drive only to find that the computer says there is 28.9GB on that same hard drive. As I said before, the hard drive companies are legally covered; they measured nothing wrong, you just 'misunderstood'. Understand now? I only mention this because, (1) it confuses a lot of people (and I meet some of them!), and (2) this may affect your hard drive size purchase. For instance, if for some reason you know that you will need a full 30GB of hard drive space, you will need to get a hard drive bigger than 30GB, like say 35 or 40GB. This doesn't, however, change my above recommendations because I have already accounted for metric vs. binary loss. You can easily make it up by the range of hard drive sizes I gave you if you absolutely need a certain amount of space.  |
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