I would like to thank all the readers of The Panama News for the warm reception to my previous article, "Broadband access in Panama". Responses have been varied and interesting. They have ranged from inquiries as to whether you can set up a satellite dish to access the Internet from Panama (yes), to setting up small business local area networks and electronic commerce websites.

As promised, I will now delve into the interesting topic of adding more storage capacity to your computer.

Traditionally, we have used the ubiquitous floppy disk drive to save our work on floppy disks (diskettes), but today’s megabyte sized files have put a strain on its capacity. It may very well be time to consider adding a new, larger hard drive to your existing computer, or making sure that new top of the line system does not skimp on that important resource.

Information on a computer is saved in a digital format. The very text you are reading now is composed of a series of 0s and 1s, which are then translated to alphanumeric characters. At the lowest end of the scale, we encounter the BIT, short for binary digit, which can represent a 0 or a 1. Eight bits make up a byte.

The possible combinations of 8 bits give us 256 distinct numbers, ranging from 0 to 255. That’s enough to assign every single letter in the alphabet in both uppercase and lowercase, all the digits, and many special characters such as the period and the parentheses, their very own number. That is, for our purposes, one byte equals one letter.

The last paragraph alone contains 343 letters (including blank spaces), meaning it occupies 343 bytes in memory. In reality, there is some overhead, especially when using word processing programs to add information about font size, style, and other formatting information.

A one million letter document will take up one million bytes. We have shorthand for this. We call it a megabyte, from the Greek, meaning million. Actually, a megabyte contains a few more bytes than that, as we use powers of two (220 for this particular case). A computer megabyte is really 1,048,576 bytes, but who is counting?

Most documents fall well below this range, as it takes some serious typing to go over a megabyte when dealing with only text. A double spaced page consists of about 1,500 characters; it would take 667 pages to reach that limit.

A three and a half inch floppy disk can hold 1.44 megabytes which is about a thousand pages. More than enough for your doctoral theses!

When you have a thousand megabytes, we call that a gigabyte. Today’s storage options are mostly measured in gigabytes and you will soon see why.

In recent years, a slew of powerful processors have made the use of digital information such as video and music files very easy. Now, music, video, and even files produced by presentation software such as PowerPoint easily surpass the 1.44 megabyte mark and present us with the problem of where to put them when we are done with them.

Up to a less than a year ago, a new machine may have come with a 20 gigabyte hard drive. If you are anything like me, you can spend 10 gigabytes in a single month! My own system has two hard drives, a 30 and a 40 gigabyte drive, for a combined total of 70 gigabytes. Even so, I am always running low on disk space

Requirements for operating system software and office suites, can easily use up several gigabytes. Once you add a few MP3s, AVIs and Divx movies into the mix, you fill up your hard drive.

Hard drives come in two types, IDE and SCSI. The difference is whether the controller for the hard drive is on the unit itself, or part of the computer. IDE drives are cheaper, because the IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) controller is embedded onto your computer’s motherboard. SCSI drives have their own controllers, which drives up the price. SCSI drives are usually very fast, but more expensive per gigabyte. Unless you are doing serious video editing work, you will probably not need this type of drive.

Most computers today come with an IDE interface. It allows for attaching up to four internal storage devices. You have probably already used up two, one for your system’s hard drive, and another for your CD-ROM reader. If you also have a CD-Writer or DVD-Reader, you may be down to just one IDE connection left, so make it count.

I recommend buying nothing less than a new 80 gigabyte IDE hard drive for your system these days. For most users it will last at least a couple of years. The speed of the hard drive is also important, as it affects the overall speed of your system. Most of your system work is done while reading or writing files. Nobody should have anything running under 7,200 RPM and most drives are available now at speeds of 10,000 RPM and above. New boxed hard drives usually come in a package with rails, screws and an instruction pamphlet detailing installation procedures. Please note that if you have an older computer, it may not "recognize" the additional capacity of your new drive. If this is the case, you may need to visit the manufacturer’s website for a Disk Manager BIOS update that will instruct your computer on how to access the entire hard drive space.

If you only need the additional capacity, simply add the new hard drive as a "Slave". It means it will just be another letter on your device listing. If you want to speed up your system, it may be necessary to move all your files from the old drive into the new one and install it as a "Master."

If you will be moving the files, I recommend using Norton’s Ghost utility (http://www.ghost.com) software, available locally, either standalone or as part of Norton Systemworks. This program will allow you to replicate all the contents of your original hard drive into the new one. You will find additional capacity, higher speed, and you will still have the old drive, which you can format clean, as additional storage space.

If mucking around your computer is just not your thing, you can pay a reasonable fee to your computer technician to do it for you. The whole process should take less than two hours. This may cost you anywhere from 25 to 75 dollars, depending on where you get it done.

Another option is to do a clean install of your operating system on your new drive, which will alleviate those pesky lags that have crept up over the years. You will have to reinstall everything from your original disks, plus move all your data files into your new drive. It is always a good time to clean house, and remove old downloads that you never installed, documents and pictures that you just know you will never use again, etc.

Even so, I recommend doing a backup of all those files, just in case. Once you format a hard disk, there is no going back. Make sure you have all your drivers handy!

For backups, I have been recommending the purchase of inexpensive CD recorders for years. Thankfully, many computers today bring a CD-Burner as a standard feature, rather than an option. Retail blank CDs in a jewel case can be had locally for fifty cents or less, and I’ve seen them as low as twenty cents per unit in a 100-unit spindle (with no jewel cases). CD-R media allows you to save your files, but not erase them. The R in CD-R stands for Read Only. You can also purchase special CD-RW media, which allows you to both write and rewrite. It is more expensive, and I don’t really use it because what’s the point of saving something to a CD if I am going to erase it one week from today. Still, they have their uses. You could use them to move versions of files back and forth from work. CD Burners today can be purchased locally in speeds of up to 48X, which means they will burn an entire CD in less than three minutes. As they have become more popular, they have dropped dramatically in price. Expect new, faster and cheaper units, which are the norm in the computer realm, but don’t delay if this is something you need now.

Locally available CDs have two storage sizes, 650 megabytes, and 700 megabytes. Do buy the 700 megabytes CDs. You can also import 800 megabyte and higher capacity media, but you have to make sure your recorder and reader supports it. Also remember that no media is eternal. CDs have an estimated shelf life of 10 years, but by then it is hoped you will have moved all your old data to a new medium, of course.

CD recorders, with the appropriate software, also allow you to make music compilations for your stereo system from your MP3 or music CD collection, so that’s a plus if you are still not sure about buying one. Everybody has a CD reader in their machine, so expect, just like floppy drives, for CDs to remain viable for many, many years.

Another option for backups is tape recorders, which I don’t even recommend to small businesses, because they are more hassle than they are worth. Tapes break. Manufacturers go broke, and you are left with a fistful of unreadable tapes.

You can also consider some online backup services (if you have a broadband connection), such as www.swapdrive.com (formerly @backup) which, for a fee, will keep incremental backups of your desired files on a server for you to download at your convenience.

A more expensive hardware option is a DVD recorder. It works just like a CD recorder, but uses DVD-R media. Although it allows 4.7 gigabytes of storage per disk, the cost per unit is high, you never really have 4.7 gigs of data to backup at one sitting, and I do not think the technology is mature enough yet.

There are combo "DVD-R, CD-R, reader" units out there, so you may want to look into those too. The upside is that you will only take one IDE slot to install this unit and you still have the convenience of reading and writing to both formats.

Sometimes you may have run out of available IDE slots, or you need the convenience an external device brings. Through the use of your USB or FireWire ports, you may very easily attach external hard drives, CD recorders, DVD readers and other devices. If you must choose, I would go with the FireWire interface, as it is faster than USB. Regrettably, most computers sold here do not seem to have that interface, so either purchase a FireWire controller or choose a USB device instead. You will pay a small premium for the additional convenience.

A plus for external devices is that, in most cases, you will not need a technician to help you set up. Most of these devices are plug and play.

To find out what’s going on with the FireWire units, visit http://www.firewireworld.com.

Another new popular option is keychain storage, otherwise known as Flash drives. They are basically Flash memory chips inside of a plastic enclosure that allows you to put it in your keychain. They come in sizes anywhere from 16MB to a full gigabyte. A 512-megabyte flash drive can be had for under $200.00 at tigerdirect.com. They provide an excellent option for moving files between your laptop and your desktop, or just to have files available when you are on the go. Beware that most of these devices will only work automatically with versions of Windows 2000, XP and up. You simply plug it into your USB port and you are ready to go. They are also available in FireWire versions.

If you need to use Windows 98 Second Edition and below, you will need to have a floppy disk with drivers handy when hooking it up to a new computer, which diminishes the convenience. Many of my students have now showed up in class bringing their homework on these devices, but since we use mostly Windows 98 computers, we have to scramble for drivers all the time. They never remember to bring the driver, since at home they use Windows XP, which has native USB storage support.

Once plugged in, they appear as an additional hard drive on your system device listing. You may read, write and delete from them, just like any other hard drive on your system. Their memory is non-volatile, meaning the information won’t be lost once you unplug them from the computer.

They are very nice because they draw very little power from your computer, and are very portable. Some have options to encrypt your data, so that if your keychain is lost, people will not be able to access your private files. Be careful, they are very small, and people tend to forget to retrieve them when they are done with the computer.

On this article I have covered, in a very basic manner, the vast array of storage options available to you. When the time comes to buy that new hard drive, flash card or CD/DVD writer, remember technology changes at a fast pace and new options may be available, make sure you do your homework.

Today’s file sizes have made having a larger drive a must. You should get a hard drive at least 80 gigabytes in size. To move entire settings from the old drive to the new drive, you may use software such as Norton’s Ghost. Other backup options include CD Writers, and online backup systems. Tape Units are not recommended for personal and small business use because of concerns with reliability and longevity. You may consider investing in a keychain storage device if you constantly have to shuffle presentations and documents between different computers.

http://www.ghost.com. Norton’s ghost utility is a disk imaging solution that allows you to move your entire disk’s contents to a new hard drive. It also allows for excellent backups.

http://www.swapdrive.com. An online backup system that for a fee, will keep backups of your chosen files. It is best used with a broadband connection.

http://www.firewireworld.com. The place to find out what is going with the FireWire standard for device communication.

www.tigerdirect.com. An excellent place for buying all sorts of computer peripherals, including hard drives and Keychain storage.


(Carlos Hassan specializes in computer support for individuals and small business. His areas of expertise include, but are not limited to, database development in Microsoft Access, website design, e-business, computer repair, and computer consulting. He can be reached at support@carloshassan.com for feedback to this article. His Cell Phone is (507) 681-3530. You may visit his website at http://www.carloshassan.com.)