Tips From JIJORO

Buy Local Get More

When buying a new computer, you should always shop around to get the best deal just like with any other major puchase.  Most people don't realize that they have a choice other than Dell, HP, eMachines or Gateway.  Local computer resellers, System Builders, are one of the best ways to buy a computer these days. 

System Builders will be able to tailor a computer to fit your needs and budget.  By asking you a few simple questions about what you plan to do with the computer, a System Builder will be able to ceate a customized computing solution that will typically outperform their larger counterparts.  Although System Builders do use the same hardware as their larger competitors, System Builders typically do not pre-load any software on the computer other than software you have requested.  This omission of pre-loaded software frees up disk space and minimizes processor usage by having only the programs you want running when you first start the computer. 

One of the biggest benefits to purchasing from a System Builder is service.  When you buy locally, you get service locally from people you know.  Be sure to check your System Builder's hours of service before buying.  Most System Builders will not have a 24 hour help desk like the larger companies, but if you can work within their service hours, you know you will be talking to someone who is in your area.

To Defrag or Not to Defrag?

In your experience of owning a computer, you have undoubtedly had someone recommend defragging your hard drive to make it run faster.  This is mostly true, but there are some underlying concepts that you should know.

Your computer stores long term data on your hard drive.  Like any good filing system, it works best when this data is contiguous.  Unfortunately, normal every day use of your computer causes your data to become fragmented, meaning that once contiguous pieces of data are now stored on separate parts of the hard drive.  This does not necessarialy slow down your computer but it increases the amount of time it takes for your hard drive to find, or seek, the data you are looking for.  A heavily fragmented drive will spend more time seeking than a newly defragmented drive and you will notice a significant gain in drive performance.

When you should defragment is entirely a personal preference.  We recommend that the average user should analyze their hard drive once monthly.  The analysis will tell you whether a defragment is necessary.  It will most likely tell you to defragment 3-4 times a year if you analyze monthly.  Individuals that use their computer 4+ hours a day and/or work with large files will probably need to defragment 6-8 times a year.  If the analysis tells you to defrag every month for 3 months straight, begin analyzing your hard drive every other week for optimum performance.

If you do not know how to defragment your hard drive, please contact a computer repair technician.

Do I Need More Memory or a Bigger Hard Drive?

While talking to customers about their computer upgrade options, the conversation usually ends up with a discussion about memory and hard drives. 

To answer this question we must first talk about the differences between memory, also called RAM, and hard drives.  Simply put, RAM is the working information store of the computer while the hard drive is the long term storage of the computer.  Imagine that you are the computer and you are working on some files.  Your filing cabinet would be considered the hard drive and the space on your desk would be considered the RAM.  The filing cabinet is accessible, however it takes longer for you to get up from your desk and get a file and bring it back to your desk than it does to access the file sitting on your desk.

This example should illustrate how RAM is faster than your hard drive.  It also should allow you to see how you can store vastly larger amounts of information on your hard drive than in memory.  Two things it does not cover are the volatility of RAM and the usage of hard drive space as Virtual Memory.  RAM is known as volatile storage because if the computer loses power, you will lose all information in the RAM.  This is how some files can become corrupt if your computer abruptly loses power or is not shut down correctly.  Virtual Memory is hard drive space that is used to augment RAM.  The amount of Virtual Memory available to you is directly related to the amount of RAM installed in your computer.  For example, if you have 1GB of RAM installed in your PC, you will have approximately 1.4GB of Virtual Memory created on your hard drive for a total of 2.4GB of available memory.  The Virtual Memory should not be viewed as memory that you want to use on a regular basis, but as a buffer so that if you are performing heavy duty tasks, you do not run out of memory.  Back to the example, your desk has a limited amount of space to handle files so you must use part of the filing cabinet to store some of your working files.  Obviously it will take you longer to access the files in the filing cabinet, but it will allow you to get the job done.

So the question still remains, do I need more memory or a bigger hard drive.  The answer is: It Depends.  If you are recieving errors related to memory or virtual memory then you should probably invest in more RAM.  If you are recieving Disk Space errors or cannot save files to your hard drive, then you likely need a larger hard drive.  Either way, we would recommend that you consult a computer repair technician to give you an accurate recommendation.