Computer Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread II

I was thinking of buying an internal HDD. I wonder, are bigger disks slower if they have the same RPM as smaller?

Are 7200 RPM and 64 mb cache a solid choice?
 
I was thinking of buying an internal HDD. I wonder, are bigger disks slower if they have the same RPM as smaller?

Are 7200 RPM and 64 mb cache a solid choice?

No, generally bigger disks are faster, because of the increased density. (A bit of variance due to disks having different numbers of platters.)

Recommended drives: http://www.storagereview.com/best_drives

It doesn't really matter a whole lot, pretty much everything is going to be fine for media, OS/apps/games should all be going on an SSD anyway.
 
Thanks! I'm buying this for data, and am going to wait until SSDs have more volume and are cheaper. The HD isn't my bottleneck at the moment.
 
@Zelig, so a 2.5" external would be faster than a 3.5" external of the same file size?
 
@Zelig, so a 2.5" external would be faster than a 3.5" external of the same file size?

Hm, that's actually an interesting question, but not a terribly practical one. Following comparisons are just using bare drives, specs are are easier to look up and you can buy your own enclosure - external drives are just drives that include enclosures.

A 2.5" drive of identical technology and RPM should be faster than an equivalent 3.5" drive of the same size, but this is a comparison that almost never happens.

The fastest consumer 2.5" is the 750GB WD Scorpio Black for $107. You can get a 1.5TB 3.5" drive for $90, so I dunno in what scenario the speed difference between a 750GB 2.5" drive and a 750GB 3.5" drive is relevant.

My basic rundown of when you should get what drives:

SSD - OS/apps/games/documents go on here, always. Get whatever size you need to hold all your stuff.
2.5" HDD - No point in getting one of these in a computer any more. Appropriate externally if you need more space (for media) than an SSD gives when you travel, or you want to regularly backup when you travel. No point in getting anything smaller than 1TB.
3.5" HDD - Internal or external as convenient for media storage or backup. No point in getting anything smaller than 2TB.
 
I was thinking of a 2.5" 500gb for cheap HDD backup. My laptop has 750 capacity and I don't expect to use nearly all of that, so 500 would be enough and about the cheapest/smallest option.
 
Best way to set up a full system backup is with the automatic tool in Win8/Mac OS that saves multiple versions of files, so it will use all of the available space on whatever disk you set it to use as a backup.

If I were you, I'd get an SSD and an enclosure for your 750GB drive, then use that as the backup.

edit: Even if you get an external HDD as a backup, a 500GB drive is $70, and a 1TB drive is only $20 more...
 
I'd need 256+ ssd just to store the data I already put on in 3 months... SSDs will never be a priority storage for me until they get bigger and cheaper. Maybe my next laptop, in 4 years, will have one... until then they're not even in consideration.
 
I'd need 256+ ssd just to store the data I already put on in 3 months... SSDs will never be a priority storage for me until they get bigger and cheaper. Maybe my next laptop, in 4 years, will have one... until then they're not even in consideration.

Wait, you have more than 256GB of apps/OS/games/documents? That's all you put on the SSD. Put movies/tv on an external HDD.

Seriously, the performance difference between SDDs and HDDs is tremendous, HDDs really shouldn't even be in consideration for your OS drive.
 
I'm thinking about fixing computers as a part time job to pay for things I need.

How long does it take to become A+ certified? Should I take actual classes, or would books on the matter be good enough?

Keep in mind my knowledge of taking computers apart is limited to installing new RAM.
 
If you apply yourself it shouldn't take more than a couple weeks. The A+ cert is not that difficult.
 
That's good to hear. :) When I finish my class I might have to look into that. A couple of weeks is what I have.

So... how do you go about taking the A+ test? Do you go to a testing center somewhere? Can you take it online? How does that work exactly?
 
I don't know if you can get it online these days, or have to find a testing center (which any computer training school likely has). CompTIA is the certifying organization. So you can look up the most recent info there.
 
I'm thinking about fixing computers as a part time job to pay for things I need.

How long does it take to become A+ certified? Should I take actual classes, or would books on the matter be good enough?

Keep in mind my knowledge of taking computers apart is limited to installing new RAM.

To fix computers, you need experience fixing computers. Not classes, and certainly not books.
 
To fix computers, you need experience fixing computers. Not classes, and certainly not books.

Touché. :p

My parents do have a few outdated computers they don't use anymore. I could always take them apart and mess with the insides. I mean, that wouldn't exactly be "fixing" computers, but that's about my best place to start...

As for the A+ certification, I think you often can't get hired without one.
 
Taking apart and putting back together obsolete computers is not really useful. Your best place to start is fixing computers. Fixing.

Seriously, your thinking about this is totally backwards. Certifications are not problem-solving skills.
 
Taking apart and putting back together obsolete computers is not really useful. Your best place to start is fixing computers. Fixing.

Seriously, your thinking about this is totally backwards. Certifications are not problem-solving skills.

Well until I can find someone that has a computer that needs to be fixed (and would trust me to fix it) I can't really do that. :(
 
As for the A+ certification, I think you often can't get hired without one.

If I'm hiring a tech, I don't give any craps about certifications they have, I'm just going to ask them some technical questions:

1. Random bluescreens. Solve.
2. No internet connectivity. Solve.
3. Hard drive seems to have died, client wants their data. Solve.
4. Massive virus/malware infection. Solve.
 
If I'm hiring a tech, I don't give any craps about certifications they have, I'm just going to ask them some technical questions:

1. Random bluescreens. Solve.
2. No internet connectivity. Solve.
3. Hard drive seems to have died, client wants their data. Solve.
4. Massive virus/malware infection. Solve.

This is good stuff to know. :)
 
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