Articles marked as "storage" :
Copy Files at Blazing Speeds with TeraCopy
[ 15 July 2009 ]
Marked under multimedia, storage, time savers, windows.
Have you ever had the tedious task of copying a friends music library or moving the entire contents of one hard drive to another? In pretty much any situation where you need to move or copy a lot of data you are burdened with a fair amount of wait time. Using Windows Explorer to move files around is quite a task and doing it on an OS like Vista can really use up your time.
Do yourself a favor and immediately download a copy of free TeraCopy. Get yourself the portable verison so you have this time saver anywhere you go. TeraCopy will move or copy files for you but at a much faster rate than Windows Explorer and it has many other additional features. TeraCopy integrates into the Explorer shell and even has a pause/resume copying feature.
Drag and Drop files to Copy
Choose a Destinaion Location
That’s all there is to it — TeraCopy will copy the files to your destination and show a progress meter.
HOWTO: Never Lose Personal Data When Reinstalling Your OS
[ 23 July 2007 ]
Marked under storage, time savers.
Need to reformat your computer? Is your OS having problems which results in you having to reinstall? If so, I bet you’re about to do some major file backups, huh? It’s common practice for people to use CDs, DVDs, Flash drives, and external hard drives to back up their data. This common method isn’t necessarily the quickest and simplest way of doing things. I introduce you to the “Poor Man’s Backup Method.” I guess one could also just call it a simple backup method. Unfortunately, you can’t start using this method immediately; you actually do need to reformat to begin using this method.
Prerequisites: Knowledge of how to [re]format a hard drive, create partitions, and install your OS of choice.
1. The Clean Slate
Before you do anything, make sure you back up ALL of your data. You can use the common methods for this: CDs, DVDs, other hard drives, Flash drives, email, etc. You need a clean slate, so once you have ALL of your important data backed up, format your hard drive completely.
2. Splitting the Atom
Now, here comes the trick. Create two partitions. You can make them of equal size or you can opt for different sizes. Just make sure there’s enough space on one to install your OS.
Conversion reminder: Take the total number of megabytes of your drive and divide by 1024 to get the number of gigabytes.
3. Installing the OS & Secondary Drive Creation
Now, install the OS like you normally would on your C: drive. This part is no different than if you did a full reformat without making two partitions.
Now you need to format that extra partition into a usable drive. Right-click My Computer > Manage > Storage > Disk Management.
Right-click on the unpartitioned area next to the C: drive and click “Format…” and format the partition accordingly. This might take some time, but when it’s done, you will now have another usable drive. Feel free to change the drive letter if you want.
(click image to enlarge)
4. Data Migration
Once you have the OS set up, move you data from your backup media to the OTHER drive on your computer. Don’t put this data on the C:\ drive which is for your OS. The reason you created that second partition was for storing your data.
5. Putting It To Use
Now, say you run into major problems with your OS. Maybe it has a virus or it’s going very slow. Now you just need to wipe your C: drive and reinstall the OS there. You data is all intact on your other partition.
HOWTO: Fast File Tranfers On Your Home Network with FTP
[ 7 June 2007 ]
Marked under multimedia, storage, time savers, windows.
We’ve all done it… we’ve had to transfer some files to a computer just feet away, but we’ve had to do extra work to get the job done. There are plenty of ways to get stuff to another computer on your network – email, external media (thumb drives, external HDDs), web space, direct connections (like in IM), etc. Many of those methods are really great, but by using FTP, we can take advantage of local transfers over our own network.
Note: This requires Windows XP Professional
In a nutshell: install the FTP service in Windows on at least one of the computers (best if all have it); make anonymous FTP connections allowed; FTP to your internal IP address from one computer to the other. And….done.
In detail:
1. Install the FTP server
You need your Windows XP Pro installation CD to install this extra Windows component, so load up the CD and go to the Control Panel in Windows. Open Add or Remove Programs and select Add/Remove Windows Components from the left side.
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Put a check mark next to Internet Information Services (IIS) and click the Details… button.
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Put a check mark next to File Transfer Protocol (FTP) Service. Common Files and the Snap-In will automatically become selected. Click OK and Next and finish up the installation.
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2. Set up anonymous FTP and an ftproot
Open up Administrative Services (can be found in the Control Panel). From there, open up IIS. Expand FTP Sites and right-click on Default FTP Site, and hit Properties.
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Under the Security Accounts tab, make sure Allow Anonymous Connections is checked.
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Under the Home Directory tab, make sure Read and Write are both checked. At the top, choose a path to your ftproot, or keep the default (C:\Inetpub\ftproot). Mine is set to C:\dropbox\.
(click to enlarge image)
3. Transfer files in an FTP client
Load up your favorite FTP client and connect to your local IP address of the computer your sending data to. For example, say my local IP is 192.168.1.4 and the computer I want to send data to is 192.168.1.7. In my FTP client, I would enter 192.168.1.7 for the server and connect. The file transfer should be really quick since you’re on the same network. The data is not going over the Internet but is actually just going through your router from one connected client to another. So, the real bottleneck of the transfer is the router itself.
4. Q & A
Q: Why do you only need one (of two) computers to transfer files?
A: Say you want to transfer files to and from two computers. You have PC1 and PC2. If you set up the FTP server on PC2, it’s possible to transfer data in both directions – to and from PC1. To send data to PC2, connect to its IP from PC1 and send your files over. Easy. Say you want something from PC2 to go to PC1. Just copy the file(s) into the ftproot on PC2, and when you connect from PC1, just drag the files from PC2 to your own local file system.
Q: Can I set up the FTP service using Windows XP Home?
A: No. However, you might be able to get it to work. Read these instructions.
Q: Can I make FTP access NOT anonymous?
A: Yes, just make sure the Allow Anonymous Connections option is not checked. You can manage permissions below it.
HOWTO: Share Files Among Computers with Tubes
[ 3 May 2007 ]
Marked under multimedia, storage, time savers.
Tubes is a free service for sharing files among computers. The application is a desktop program that allows the user to create a “tube” that he can place files in. Other users – friends, family, co-worker, other PCs – can subscribe to the tube and can get updated files added to the tube. You can choose to autosync a tube which will automatically get new files when they’re added to a tube. Think of it as instantly sending files to an aggregate group of people using your tube. This is a walk-through on how to get started using Tubes to share files.
1. Register and download
First, go to www.tubesnow.com. Click the download button. It will take you to a register page. Register for a free account (which gives you 2 Gb of space) or pay $4.99/month for Premium (5 Gb, more features) and download Tubes.
2. Add a tube
The first time you use Tubes, it will connect you to two tubes on its own, Help and What’s New.
Click the + sign to create a new tube. Name the tube and choose additional options from the details menu.
(click image to enlarge)
Your tube will get processed and created.
Double-click on your tube and a tube explorer window will open up.
(click image to enlarge)
You can start dragging some files into this tube. As you can see in the image below, I am using the free account which offer 2 gigabytes of storage.
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In the Tubes Navigator, your tube will show how many files you have in your tube.
3. Invite people to your tube
If you right-click your tube, you can send out invites to other people to use your tube so you can share files
Stay tuned for updates as I’ll be posting some more screenshots of other tubes receiving files.
HOWTO: Free Up Precious Space in Windows
[ 20 February 2007 ]
Marked under storage, time savers, windows.
Notice your hard drive getting pretty full? Isn’t it a hassle to go through the whole workflow of deleting Temporary Internet Files, clearing your Cache, removing unnecessary backup files, etc.? We’ll, luckily there’s an excellent program out there for you. To top things off, it’s completely free. CleanUp! is an excellent program to free up some space on your hard drive. It works by scanning your drive and deleting the common space-takers, like your Firefox Cache, IE’s Temporary Internet Files, your cookie text files, as well as standard temp files and even your prefetch files *. It’s just a simple download and install and you’re on your way to more free space.
Once CleanUp! is installed, you will notice two CleanUp! shortcuts, the normal version and the demo mode:
Running the demo will scan your drive and pretend to clean it up, but it won’t actually remove any files. This is good to see how much space it might save you without doing it permanently. Try this is you are wary of removing so many files; you can always check out the log to see what files were deleted:
(click image to enlarge)
Once you run the normal mode of CleanUp!, you can choose some options to customize the scan. Just select the Options menu:
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As you can see above, after 6 scans, I’ve cleared up 956 MBs.
In the options menu, you can select what you want to be removed from your machine. I prefer the Standard settings, but you can customize it to your liking. If you are ever unsure, just run it in demo mode.
Go ahead and download CleanUp! now to start freeing up some space.
Turn your speakers on too before you run the scan — it’s pretty amusing.
* – After reading the comment below and doing some research, it appears the Prefetcher caps itself to a limit so the .pf files don’t take up a lot of space. Not to mention that fact that these files are just re-created anyways, so it’s just a waste of time to remove them.
HOWTO: Build Your Own External Hard Drive
[ 3 December 2006 ]
Marked under storage.
These days storage capacities for computers are getting very large. It’s not at all uncommon for a standard desktop PC to come with anywhere from 80 to 120 gigabyte drives. This might be good for desktops, but many laptops don’t come with such large drives. Regardless of your computer type (desktop or laptop), an alternative storage space option exists called an external hard drive. Pre-built external hard drives are common because they add additional storage to any computer via a cable (USB, Firewire, eSATA, etc.). These External drives are good because you can have all of this extra space independent of one machine — connect to any computer using the transfer type it supports. It’s actually very easy to make your own external hard drive which is cheaper than buying a pre-built one.
Two Necessary Parts
To build your own external hard drive, you need to buy two separate pieces of hardware: an internal hard drive and a hard drive enclosure. It’s important to buy a hard drive and enclosure that support the same interfaces. There are two main interfaces to choose between: Parallel ATA and Serial ATA. PATA, or just known as ATA (and IDE in many cases), is the older type of interface. There are many cheap ATA (or IDE) drives out there that are more than sufficient for use. SATA drives are much newer and less common. These newer drives use faster internal interface over a smaller cable. This speed adds additional costs. Since SATA drives are newer, they’re less common, but eventually they’ll be everywhere.
Find yourself an internal hard drive you’d like for storage. Check out the internal hard drives available at Newegg. If you’re looking for a cheaper drive, stick with a good old ATA drive. If you’re into the latest technology, grab a SATA drive. Below is an image of an internal hard drive made by Western Digital:
Now that you have your hard drive, you need to find an enclosure to hold it. The enclosure does a few things for the drive. It’s a natural case than supports the drive so it’s protected. Enclosures are also often made of aluminum to absorb the heat from the drive. In fact, I highly recommend you get an enclosure made of aluminum. The enclosure also converts the drive from its internal interface (ATA/IDE or SATA) to an external interface (USB, Firewire, eSATA). Make sure the enclosure you choose supports the same interface that your drive is built on. You can check out some great enclosures at Newegg. Below is an image of an enclosure made by Bytecc:
Put the pieces together
Once you have both pieces of hardware, its time to put them together to build your drive. Below is an image of a Maxtor internal hard drive connected to the enclosure’s internal interface. The drive is an ATA drive connected to the enclosure’s chipset via the gray ribbon cable. This piece slides into the black case above to form the external hard drive. Then, there would typically be a USB or Firewire cable coming out of the enclosure to connect to your computer.
(image from usbgear.com)
Benefits of making your own external drive
There are many reasons for you to build your own external hard drive(s).
1. Its very easy and cheap. If you search well enough, you can find internal drives and enclosures that cost less than pre-built external drives.
2. Since you can actually take out your drive, you can swap in another drive in very little time. If something happens to your desktop and you can’t log on, just put it in the enclosure and browse the drive from another machine. You then have full access to it and can scan and clean it up.
3. If something happens and you need/want to buy a new one, you can still use the same enclosure (as long as the interfaces are the same).
