Chris Pirillo » hard-drive

What is the Best Way to Clone a Hard Drive?

Chris Pirillo — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 16:18:24 +0000

What is the Best Way to Clone a Hard Drive?

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One of our Lockergnome users recently asked the community what the best method of cloning a hard drive is. For a Mac, you can use Carbon Copy Cloner, which is free and simple. You already know that performing regular backups can save you from disaster. Using CCC gives you a peace of mind that is priceless. In addition to general backup, CCC can also clone one volume to another, copying every file to create an exact replica of your source volume.

Since I’m not familiar with Windows alternatives, I chose to check out one of the coolest sites I’ve found: AlternativeTo.net. There are seemingly thousands of programs there which will do the same type of thing within Windows that CCC can do within Mac OS X.

As with anything, do your research before choosing a cloning software. Do a simple Google search of the name plus the word reviews. Read what others have to say about the program’s performance and pick something that not only best fits your needs but also has fantastic reviews by people who have actually used it.

What is the Best Way to Clone a Hard Drive?

World’s Slimmest 1TB Portable Hard Drive

Chris Pirillo — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 23:33:01 +0000

World’s Slimmest 1TB Portable Hard Drive

How’s this for lightweight and data dense:

This new 1TB GoFlex will use a new 2.5-inch drive with 2 platters — each at 500GB — to maintain a 9.5mm Z-height (the same height and depth as GoFlex ultra-portable drives at 640GB and below. The “slim” ultra-portable device also reaches a new areal density or per-platter capacity – previously, the drive was yielding 375GB per platter, and now it boasts 500GB.

Oh, and it’s now compatible with the GoFlex TV (the 1TB drive now slips right into the unit’s drive slot). These drives also come bundled with a pre-loaded copy of “Star Trek” for no additional fee, plus a selection of 20 other films from which to choose, and have a USB 3.0 cable included. Not so sure I’m as thrilled about that, though.

World’s Slimmest 1TB Portable Hard Drive

When Your Hard Drive Dies

Chris Pirillo — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 03:56:21 +0000

When Your Hard Drive Dies

You could hold a memorial service and give your dead hard drive a proper burial in your junk drawer, but Lifehacker has rounded up a few more interesting options for using your dead hard drive. There are suggestions for everything from a magnetic knife holder to a laser light show.

I’m partial to my Tix Clocks, but if I ever get tired of them, maybe I’ll make an LED Hard Drive Clock—though I’d definitely need to do something about all that noise! Maybe it would be easier to go with some nice, simple Hard Drive Wind Chimes instead.

Just be sure you check the warranty before you try any of these ideas. Turning your hard drive into a wallet will definitely void the warranty.

You have a project for a dead hard drive? Let me hear about it in the comments.

When Your Hard Drive Dies

What is the Size of Your Largest Hard Drive?

Chris Pirillo — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 04:46:54 +0000

What is the Size of Your Largest Hard Drive?

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What’s the biggest hard drive you have in your possession right now? Which single hard drive in your home has the largest capacity? I happen to have a 3 TB drive here, sent to me as a review unit by Seagate. It’s their FreeAgent GoFlex external drive. If you remember, I’ve reviewed some of their stuff in the past, and been very happy with it. Does this particular drive stand up to the test?

The drive features USB 2.0 plug-n-play capability. There’s nothing difficult to mess around with… just plug it in and you’re good to go. It gives you automatic continuous backup and protects your privacy with powerful encryption software. That, my friends, is peace of mind that cannot be bought at any price.

So what makes this particular desktop drive unique other than the size? It’s USB compatible and can be changed up to be Firewire compatible or even USB 3.0 compatible. It’s quite simple to change – you just change the adapter. You’re good to go in about two seconds flat. It’s likely the most future-proof desktop drive you’ll find anywhere.

The drive is versatile, sturdy and just plain sexy – and is likely the last external drive I will ever need to own.

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What is the Size of Your Largest Hard Drive?

Are Solid State Drives Better Than Traditional Hard Drives?

Chris Pirillo — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 19:35:44 +0000

Are Solid State Drives Better Than Traditional Hard Drives?

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Over on our popular questions and answers site, bcgocubs asked how a computer will benefit when using an SSD. Also, they would like to know what everyone’s general opinions are regarding solid state drives vs traditional hard drives. A traditional hard drive has moving parts, but is quite inexpensive compared to an SSD. The solid-state drive is just that: suspended in a solid state with no moving parts. It may be more expensive to buy one of these, but many people are starting to believe that they are much better for your computer.

With a solid state drive, you’re going to have a lot more speed than you do with their counterparts. I personally prefer the speed of the SSD. There are measurable differences when you change over to one of these little babies. However, I had to pay through the nose to get one with some storage room to it.

It boils down to which is more important to you. If you’re looking for maximum capacity, you want a regular hard drive. If you want increased speed and performance, then a solid state drive may be right for you.

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Are Solid State Drives Better Than Traditional Hard Drives?

How to Flex Your External Hard Drive Options

Chris Pirillo — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 07:29:06 +0000

How to Flex Your External Hard Drive Options

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This ultra-portable hard drive doesn’t have a USB port nor a Firewire port, an eSata port or any other sort of port. The issue with external hard drives is that they have one type of port or another. When a new type of connection comes out, you’ll need a new drive. This Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex that was sent to me for review is completely different. There are zero ports on the back. How the heck can you connect it, then?

Elementary, my dear Watson. The cable that comes along with the device will turn the device into whatever type of hard drive you need. One cable will turn it into a USB 3-compatible drive. Another cable will turn it into a Firewire-compatible drive. There’s also an eSata-compatible cable. Do you see where I’m going with this? If, in the future, a new type of port is created then Seagate only has to manufacture another type of cable instead of an entire new device. You won’t have to keep upgrading your external hard drive. You’ll simply need the new cable.

The GoFlex Desk external drive delivers high-capacity storage, backup and encryption for all your files. It works well on either Mac OS X or Windows. The sleek little box is designed to sit in either vertical or horizontal orientation, depending on how your desk is set up.

The drive is versatile, sturdy, sexy and well… it works. I’m quite happy knowing that I have the last hard drive I’ll ever need.

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How to Flex Your External Hard Drive Options

My First Hard Drive Was…

Chris Pirillo — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 22:05:00 +0000

My First Hard Drive Was…

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Headwards is a user on our Lockergnome.net site who asked what capacity our first hard drive was. My first computer didn’t even have a hard drive in it! The first one I purchased with my own money cost me around $200.00 and it had a couple of 5 1/4″ floppy drives. When I bought it back in 1993, it seemed relatively outdated even then.

I then worked to save around $2200.00 and bought my first real computer. I got a machine with 8MB of RAM and 4MB of video RAM. I think it had 420MB worth of storage! It even had a CD drive that could read at double-speed. Back in the day, that was a pretty good system. It was the best that was out there.

I still have binaries (executables) and media that I downloaded from the newsgroups back then that I had to decode and ultimately put on my system. I remember when I’d see a 100k file and think how big it was. I’d wonder if it would even work on my system. Yes… 100 K. Anything 1MB or more was considered “killer” back then.

What was your first computer, and how big of a hard drive did it have? Who can beat me?

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My First Hard Drive Was…

We Haven’t Forgotten Windows 7

Chris Pirillo — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 03:33:09 +0000

We Haven’t Forgotten Windows 7

Last week, we posted an offer to our readers about a security encryption program, SafeBit. There was a forty percent reduction to their usual price for the people who frequent these pages. Our write-up can be found here.

Because of very bad timing and the issue with coordinating over many different time zones, we learned too late that the program does work with Windows 7. The memo states: “it is compatible with the 32 bit version of Windows 7.”

The good news is that the SafeBit people are extending their generous offer until April 25th, 2010. Now there is no reason for our Windows 7 people to miss out on this offer. Thanks to the people at SafeBit for all their effort and for looking out for the Windows 7 users.

We Haven’t Forgotten Windows 7

How to Protect Your Hard Drive

Chris Pirillo — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 08:47:37 +0000

How to Protect Your Hard Drive

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There are thousands upon thousands of hard drive enclosures. However, only one of them is both fireproof and waterproof. I have precious video files from the Gnomedex conference on my ioSafe Solo. For the purpose of this video, I completely submerged the hard drive in water, to show you that it truly is waterproof as they claim! Yes – the videos were all still completely intact! I wouldn’t try this at home with any enclosure other than the ioSafe Solo!

I know you’re not likely to submerge your hard drive in a bathtub full of water. However, imagine your business or home office were to become flooded for some reason. Or, heaven forbid, you were to have a fire. Using the ioSafe Solo will guarantee that your data is still safe.

It’s waterproof for up to ten feet of salt water OR fresh water, for up to three days. It can withstand up to 1550 degrees of heat for up to half an hour! It’s only good for one disaster, of course. I have to thank ioSafe for passing this along for me to review. It’s an excellent piece of hardware!

We have a special for you, in case you want to pick up your own ioSafe Solo. You can save 10% when purchasing the ioSafe Solo for yourself!

After I extracted my hard drive from the enclosure, I hooked it back up to my computer. As you can see in the video… my files are all still in perfect shape! Gnomedex is saved! The ioSafe Solo definitely works as advertised!

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How to Protect Your Hard Drive

How to Re-Partition a Hard Drive

Chris Pirillo — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 02:32:50 +0000

How to Re-Partition a Hard Drive

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Warren has done a couple of screencasts for our channels over the past weeks, and has done a very good job with them. In this one, he’s going to show you how to re-petition your hard drive. Keep in mind that this is something anyone can do, with the right instructions. Warren’s are clear and easy to follow. Remember that it’s not too late for you to submit a screencast for possible use on our channels.

If you want to allocate space on your hard drive in a different way, you can use the cool built-in feature found in Vista and Windows 7 both. You’ll need to first go to your Start menu, and right-click on “my Computer”. Now, choose “Manage”. Over on the left, go to “Storage”, and then “Disk Management”.

Disk Management will show you all of the hard drives available on your system at the present time. Choose which drive you want to create a partition on. Select it, right click it, and click on “Shrink Volume”. Once it’s done that, it will scan your drive to see how many MB are available to use.

Choose your partition size, keeping in mind that one GB is equal to 1024 MB, not 1000 as many people assume. After you type your partition size in, just click on the “Shrink” button. Once it is finished, you’ll need to right-click on the new partition, and choose “New Simple Volume”.

The wizard will pop up. Click through the first window. If you want to use all of the newly-allocated space, simply click through that window, as well. On the third frame, it will ask you to assign a drive letter. Choose any letter you wish that isn’t already being used on your machine. The next frame allows you to decide if you want to format the new volume, and how you wish to format it. The last frame will be a summary of what settings you just chose.

Once the wizard closes out, go back into your Computer icon. You’ll see your new partitioned drive. You can open it up, and it is ready to use. Drag whatever data you wish into it and begin using it!

Thanks again Warren for another excellent screencast!

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How to Re-Partition a Hard Drive

Should You Create a Partition?

Chris Pirillo — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:57:52 +0000

Should You Create a Partition?

It is surprising how strongly some people feel about the issue of partitioning or not. Voices are raised – faces become a bit redder – language becomes a bit more colorful. If you are from the school of thought that partitioning is absolutely not necessary, please leave a comment at the bottom of the page. Your point of view is valuable and should be considered.

This presentation, however, will favor partitioning. There will be some of us who will remember the days when, for example, a 3GB hard drive on your laptop was considered to be “state of the art”, and the cost of that machine was several thousand dollars. Now, that seems archaic, and the hard drives increasingly grow in size – and some are partitioned.

One of the best arguments on the side of partitioning was given by Mitch Tulloch, in an article for Microsoft. The three major points that Mitch basis his argument are:

partitioning organizes work
partitioning safeguards the data
partitioning increases the computer’s performance

One of the points is that Mitch makes is: At the end of each month, I copy last month’s Archive subfolders to CD, label it by date, and put it somewhere safe. That way I have last month’s backup ready if both my hard disks fail from a lightning bolt hitting my office, or my computer is infected with a virus, or a thief steals my computer. Needless to say, the security programs should be run to make certain that the back-up is not infected.

One of the most popular and well-used partitioning programs is Acronis Disk Director Suite. It has won industry recommendations and users’ praise.

The Acronis Disk Management and Partitioning program is easy to use and effective. It supports Windows (NT 4, 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista). And, until July 22, 2009, the Acronis people are offering our readers an amazing thirty per cent (30%) discount.

This program is a CNET Editors’ Choice Award winner: A suite of utilities that will keep your hard disk healthy. An excellent set of tools that will allow you to keep your hard disk healthy and organized. The Acronis Disk Management program has had many third party reviews and it has been top rated.

Thanks to the Acronis people for the generous offering for our readers.

Should You Create a Partition?

What’s the Best Hard Drive Enclosure to Buy?

Chris Pirillo — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:25:04 +0000

What’s the Best Hard Drive Enclosure to Buy?

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A few days ago, I heard whimpering from my closet. I thought one of the dogs had been stuck inside there. Low and behold, it was an old hard drive whining to be used once again. However, I needed an enclosure to put it in! When I had the opportunity to look at the NexStar 3 from Vantec, I jumped on it!

The sturdy cage protects your hard drive, and the aluminum case draws away the heat. This protects your drive from overheating. The NexStar 3 is available in two awesome colors: Onyx black and midnight blue. The colors are vibrant, allowing you to store your data in an enclosure that matches your style.

This enclosure will accommodate any SATA drive, no matter the size. It even has several connectivity options, which makes it quite versatile! One of the things that stands out about the NexStar 3 is that it has a removable stand, and can sit it whichever way works best.

The thing that stands out the most, however, is that the tray slides out. Once you’ve attached the hard drive to this, you simply slide the tray back in. There are no tools necessary, and it’s just so easy to get your drive up and running.

So there you have it: The NexStar 3 from Vantec is sleek and sexy looking, it has a ton of connectivity options, and it is amazing easy to use. Be sure to consider grabbing one of these for yourself if you need a hard drive enclosure.

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What’s the Best Hard Drive Enclosure to Buy?

How to Speed Up Your PC

Chris Pirillo — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:40:29 +0000

How to Speed Up Your PC

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PCPitstop is one of those resources you need, but don’t realize it until you need it! These guys have been around for nearly a decade now, and their reputation is rock-solid. They have a feature called “Ask an Expert” – and they’ve asked me to answer one of the questions. Candace is wondering how she can speed up her computer. She defrags regularly, and isn’t sure what more she can do.

There are several things you can do, Candace. Memory could speed things up, although there’s a law of diminishing returns. Since you didn’t mention a specific operating system, I know you’re running Windows due to the mention of running a defrag. If you’re using Vista – stop it. Spring forward to the Windows 7 beta, or roll back to XP. Even if you like Vista, you still have to realize how much of a resource hog it can be. The operating system is as important as the software you’re running on it.

Defragging is only going to help you so much. If your hard drive is full – consider cleaning it up. Store some of your videos, pictures and documents on a separate storage drive. If your hard drive is full, it definitely will not run at optimal importance.

Another option is to upgrade your hard drive itself. Consider switching from the HDD hard drive you likely have to a Solid State Drive. The problem could be due to the bottleneck speed of your current hard drive.

It’s difficult to guess at what will work best here, since I don’t know the full specs of the system. However, I’m willing to wager that the problem is bottleneck with the hard drive. I couldn’t believe how much faster my own personal machine ran after upgrading myself to the Samsung SSD.

How else can Candace make her computer faster? Let’s make this a community effort – if you have an answer to this, please feel free to leave your thoughts in a follow-up comment to this video.

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How to Speed Up Your PC

Are SSDs Good for Gaming?

Chris Pirillo — Thu, 28 May 2009 06:43:37 +0000

Are SSDs Good for Gaming?

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No, there’s nothing wrong with this video or your computer! I was just being my usual dorky self. You know, your computer can run that fast if you have the right hardware. There will always be slow components, of course – usually your hard drive. That isn’t the case if you have an SSD drive though! You might remember a few weeks ago, I did a review of Samsung’s stupid fast SSD. I was just flabbergasted at how quickly everything ran on my computer.

A solid-state drive is something that has no moving parts, and is just stupid fast. Many of you went out and bought your own SSD drive, and are reporting to me that you can’t imagine going back. I’ve noticed so much of a speed increase on my computer since changing over to the Samsung SSD. Programs that use a lot of data – like my instant messenger program – are just lightning fast compared to what they were on a regular drive.

Many of you have asked ‘how is game performance on an SSD?”. Of course it’s faster and better! When you copy your game data over to your drive, you know that it’s going to have to read the information. The faster the read time – the more responsive the game is going to be. Game response on an SSD is great to phenominal. When you’re gaming, you want to keep rolling… so get an SSD.

Fine, don’t believe me? I decided to demonstrate using Need For Speed: Carbon. I’ve already copied over all 5+GB to the Samsung SSD. I chose a quick and easy race, since I’m not the greatest at playing things like this. Heck, I try though! What more do you want?

Remember, the game loaded from a 5GB app on the SSD… and it was ready within a couple of seconds. That’s literally all it took! Think about how long it takes you to load a game like this on your normal drive. You’re jealous now, aren’t you?

You know what you need to do. You need to get yourself an SSD today! Who knows what the future will bring… but the present is stupid fast!

Thanks again to Samsung for sending this to me. My life is just so much better now.

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Are SSDs Good for Gaming?

Protecting Yourself from a Hard Drive Disaster

Chris Pirillo — Wed, 27 May 2009 04:31:16 +0000

Protecting Yourself from a Hard Drive Disaster

This can happen to anyone. Unfortunately, it happened to a long time Lockergnome chatroom visitor, Catherine (aka ‘Noggie’). I’m sure many of you have seen her in the room. Without any warning whatsoever, her healthy hard drive stopped working. Upon reboot, the operating system could not be initiated. Everything was gone. Fortunately, Catherine did have a backup copy that was almost current. She lost all of her most recent work covering the three days prior to the crash. The irony is that Catherine has written about doing backups, and published some of those articles on the Lockergnome pages and newsletters.

Disasters like this are just a matter of time. It happens to all of us who have spent much time on the computer. Hard drives can – and do – fail. If you do not have a backup of your data, everything can be gone. This means all of your data files, all of your music, all of your pictures, all of your software… everything.

Imagine all the time, energy and frustration to find all the registration codes of that software that used to be working just fine. Catherine’s hard drive crash could have been much worse. Now, if she wants to try to recover that work for those last three days, it might cost her hundreds (and perhaps thousands) of dollars. And even then, there are no guarantees that the hard drive recovery specialists can be successful.

Save yourself the aggravation. Prepare for a hard drive failure now. No, don’t wait. Really – don’t wait. Do the backups now, and make copies regularly. And if the information on your hard drive is really important, do multiple backup copies. Here is a program that will do this for you. It is the well-known Acronis True Image Program. The backup can be done easily:

Acronis True Image Program is an award-winning backup and recovery solution for a good reason: it protects your PC after just one click and allows you to recover from viruses, unstable software downloads, and failed hard drives. Create an exact copy of your PC and restore it from a major failure in minutes, or back up important files and recover them even faster.”

From now until June 2nd, 2009, you can save fifteen dollars ($15.00!!) on this excellent program. That’s 30% off!

Use this program to protect your data. The backup can save you beyond a hard drive disaster. It can help if you have a bad computer infection. If you have a virus or malware problem, you will have an extra layer of protection. Restoration of a clean system can be simple. Just make sure that you are making a copy when your computer is free from malware and other infections. Otherwise, you will be replicating the problem. And you can find in our archives the security programs that we recommend. Believe me – you don’t want to risk what you have on that hard drive. Acronis is an excellent layer of security and, at this price, this program for protecting your computer data is a true bargain.

Protecting Yourself from a Hard Drive Disaster