Linux-Speed Up Your Ide Hard Drive by Nick Krotov
Linux systems usually use conservative default IDE driver settings that could be significantly slowing down your system. By default they are set to most safe settings guaranteed to work. However you may reconfigure them to increase the read speed of your hard drive. ... Lets turn DMA mode on, this will speed up timing buffered read by a factor of two #/sbin/hdparm -d1 /dev/hda #/sbin/hdparm -c3 /dev/hda (I/O support set to 3 - turn on 32bit transfers on your first HD by typing ) #/sbin/hdparm -m16 /dev/hda (choose data transfer parameters 16 as MaxMultSect=16) #/sbin/hdparm -a16...

ATA vs SATA by Jason Kohrs
Hard Drives: ATA versus SATA The performance of computer systems has been steadily increasing as faster processors, memory, and video cards are continuously being developed. The one key component that is often neglected when looking at improving the performance of a computer system is the hard... Hard drive manufacturers have been constantly evolving the basic hard drive used in modern computer systems for the last 25 years, and the last few years have seen some exciting developments from faster spindle speeds, larger caches, better reliability, and increased data transmission speeds.

I-RAM, M-RAM: Good Bye to Hard Drives? by Marcelo Reyes
A couple of weeks ago, one of my lab associates made a comment about the advantages of the I-RAM and its speed with respect to the hard drive. What is an I-RAM? I asked. Simple. They are a bank of DDR memories that are used as a hard drive. They are powered through a PCI port and use a SATA... RAM memories are still expensive and generally not as big as a hard drive. ... Bottom line, an I-RAM emulates a SATA hard drive. ... At the same time, while I was doing some research on I-RAMs I ran into some information about a new concept, the M-RAM (Magnetic Random Access Memory).

4 Easy Ways to Speed Up A Sluggish PC by Donnie Schexnayder
Computers are supposed to speed up our productivity…to help us do more in less time. What do you do when your computer is running so slow that it’s keeping you from getting your work done? Before you kick it to the curb, try these easy, do-it-yourself suggestions to help your system run &... According to an article from Microsoft.com (see link at the end of this article), there are 4 things you can do to increase the performance of your PC: 1) Free Up Some Disk Space You can speed things up by deleting the unneeded files from your hard drive.

5 Ways To Backup Your Data... by Jason Kohrs
The data on your hard drive is the most critical item inside your computer, and the only item which can not be replaced. It may be an unwanted hassle and expense to replace a defective memory module, monitor, or processor, but there is no replacing data once lost. ... Additional Hard Drives By simply adding an additional hard drive to you system, you can protect yourself from data loss by copying it from your primary drive to your secondary drive. ... Although you may not be able to provide absolute protection to your hard drive, there are various ways that you can ensure that the data on...

Buying the Best Gaming Laptop by Julien David
If you're in the market for a new gaming laptop there are some certain things you should look out for. This article will explain the various factors you should consider when buying the best laptop for your gaming needs. Processor The processor inside your laptop will have a lot of influence on... The size of your laptop’s hard drive may not be that much of a concern because you can always get an external hard drive later on and store all your files on there without clogging up your laptop’s hard drive.

Repair Your XP - Re-Assemble Your Files! by Tony Buel
Most Windows users will notice that as time goes on their system seems to get slower and slower. This in not an illusion! This system slowdown is real and can be quite annoying. But there is something you can do which should be a part of your routine maintenance. ... One thing that causes your system to slow down is that as files get stored on your hard drive, your files may have to get broken up and saved in fragments and are scattered all over your hard drive. ... In this lesson we will use the Disk Defragment utility and defragment your hard drive.

HasYour Computer Hard Drive Ever Crashed? Are You Challenged by Backups? by Jimmie Newell
The following scenario’s have probably been repeated thousands of times, on computer systems of all kinds and sizes, operated by all levels of users from complete novice, to expert user. · You log on and your computer will not boot to your operating system. ... The speed and safety of using a removable hard drive would be hard to beat. ... The customer service rep stayed on the phone with me for about 4 hours, as we tried to diagnose where the problem was, after trying every thing she knew to try, she said they would send a technician to replace my hard drive.

Defragging: What is It and Why Should I Care? by Jason Leister
You've probably heard the word "defrag" before when talking to your resident computer nut. If you ask 5 different technology whizzes about it, you'll probably get 5 different answers about its effectiveness. So what does "defrag" mean? "Defrag" is short for "defragment," which gives you a bit of... Think of your computer hard drive like a local bookstore. ... As you use your computer, this is what is happening with your hard drive. ... As your computer ages, the hard drive becomes more and more fragmented.

Standalone CD-ROM Copiers by Kent Pinkerton
The operational details of stand-alone CD-ROM copiers are similar to those of automatic CD copiers. The only difference between the two is the difference between the CD and the CD-ROM. CD-ROM means CD-Read Only Memory (ROM). No additional data can be written on these CDs once they are recorded. ... The CD-ROM drives are rated with a speed factor relative to music CDs: 1x or 1-speed provides a data transfer rate of 150 kilobytes per second in the most common data format. ... Stand-alone CD-ROMs have a hard disc of their own.