techies-help w/ ext HD? ( Archived) (21)

thank you oh queen of efficiency and frugality

just paddle away now

You might also make sure your computer is compatable. I'm using an older pc and it will only reconise 280 gig of my 360 gig drive. When my motherboard was made a terrabyte was just a therie.


Dennis

good advice dennis

im thinkin i might like the jumpdrive idea
then i can categorize by style




ill likely do 3 wks of research
decide not to spend and dump the cds figuring
the world is an abundant place

but music and books are sooo hard for me to part with
and lets face it-spending my move budget on books aint gonna work

If you have enough room on your hard drive, you can rip your CDs into your files, using Windows Media Player. I just checked my files and 100 CDs use about 5 gigs, so you will need at least a 30 gig HD. I would go larger for any future storage you may need. This should help your budget, not needing a large 500 gig. You can copy your files onto the external HD after ripping, then delete them from your computer files if you need the space to rip some more.

Hope this helps you.
HL

You said about 600 cd's, figure average of 13 songs per cd=7800 songs!!

externals are cheap now days, get a 160 gig while you are getting one because you get a lot more for the buck this way , a small one cast just a little less.

this way you will also be able to back up movies if you have any and photos.
also.. if you get a small one and fill it full, it will respond very slowly. get a big one and it won't get full, thus will move faster.

Get a 1 TB HD external. Then you can put movies on it too, and take them with you. They're usually a USB connection, and that means you can take your movies and music over to your friends house and play it on their system as well.

This is a tricky question...

Are you trying to back up complete images of your cd's (1:1 copy's, no compression) or are you converting them to .mp3's or .wavs?

I'd recommend a 250 gig external as their prices should be reasonable, but with out any form of compression, you'll want at least a 500 gig HDD. Depending on the bands and music you listen to you looking at roughly 700MB to a CD with no compression, so for your collection you're looking at roughly 450 GB! I recommend to use some form of lossless compression at least, but to rip 600 CD's... well I'd put more than the kettle on...!

thanks gb and daed

well in my cruising of course i considered the 1Tb

and lying awake last night wondering if i put em into itunes and then onto the hd if that compresses them

i have 2 laptops- the newer bigger faster one-
the one id use to load the ext HD...
-well-the worst has happened-
motherboard or processor-

just wouldnt boot one day and the tech said this is where we are now.
ive gotten what i deserved- shoulda created an ext HD already

im in a rural area-yes there is the net-put he says these parts are stupid costly for what they are and he hasnt been able to find a
replacement-and says there is no way to determine if its the board or processor

yes putting the movies on would be great- but i have over 300 of those


im not sure this older laptop could do the job-
when i plug the sony cybershot in it reminds me a usb 2 connection would be faster-
no really?

anyway argh
not sure what i will do now
trying to save money shipping-(yes music and film are necessities-)
so buying a new laptop violates the saving effort



im just so glad i didnt buy an ext HD last night-
b4 the bad news came in about my lil friend...


so what now?

CDs are a safer archive, hard drive better for fast access.

I wouldn't get rid of your CDs incase your hard drive is stolen or fails.

But moving them all to hard drive makes sense for day to day use.

Hiya Mindful! Sorry about the crash, but here's some info if you get to the point of needing an external hard drive. I'm doing the same thing right now. 246 albums loaded only use 19 gig of space. Don't think you'd ever fill a 500 gig hard drive unless you put movies on it. A 125 gig will hold all the music you will ever own! Good luck!