Computer Drives & Storage

Although not as widely used as USB 2.0, eSATA transfer is much faster. You can prove this to yourself and to your friends in a few simple steps.

Although not as widely used as USB 2.0, eSATA transfer is much faster. You can prove this to yourself and your friends in a few simple steps.

Diskettes or floppy disks are encased in a plastic sleeve and have a circular magnetic plastic disk inside that reads and writes data. Because of its 3.5-inch size, floppy disks are removable and...

Downloading a picture to a flash drive involves copying the picture from your computer to the USB device. A flash drive is a removable storage device that plugs into your computer's USB port. They...

If you want to backup your data, doing so is as easy as dragging it to an online server or onto an external hard drive. If you want to backup your entire operating system--including your installed...

A USB flash drive is a helpful removable storage device that makes it easy to store and transfer files and documents. A USB flash drive makes these documents accessible on various computers, but...

A USB flash drive is a storage device that plugs into the USB port of your computer. These devices often have a keychain attachment or lanyard that you can wear around your neck. They are useful...

Zip drives and flash drives both store digital data for quick viewing and management. In short, they allow you to back up files from your PC. However, despite their near-identical basic functions,...

Before the Internet was popular, home users needed to purchase software applications for their operating system in computer stores. Inside the software box was either a CD or DVD that contained...

At the rate at which technology is improving, you may have a couple of unused hard drives laying around. What often happens is the laptop hard drive becomes too small for your needs, so you buy a...

Development of the IDE hard drive specification was an innovation leading to the rapid development of the personal computer. IDE drives incorporate the data logic controller interface as an...

According to the SanDisk website, U3 smart drives are USB flash drives capable of running smart applications directly from the drive. Smart applications available for use on U3 smart drives...

Jumper pins are tiny white connectors that connect to hardware components including hard drives. The way the jumper pins are connected to the hard drive determines how the computer treats the...

Finding the right internal hard drive for a computer can seem like a confusing process for anyone with little to no computer hardware knowledge. However, the process is actually quite simple. In...

Fdisk, a program packaged with earlier versions of Windows and MS-DOS, is the primary tool used to create partitions and assign them to drive letters. Fdisk also allows you to modify and erase...

A CF card, or Compact Flash card, provides data storage for portable devices. On occasion, the data on a CF card may become corrupted and will require formatting before it becomes accessible...

External computer memory is technically any storage device that you can connect to your computer to record data. There are several kinds of such devices, from USB flash drives to network servers.

While a video card or sound card may be integrated into your computer's motherboard, hard drives can be replaced and repaired. There are several ways to do.

It's a sad fact of life that computer hard drives crash and when they crash that can mean catastrophe. If you are regularly making backups of your computer's hard drive using Acronis True Image...

The Cruzer is the popular Universal Serial Bus (USB) thumb drive from SanDisk. Using a USB drive to boot your computer can be a great way to diagnose and repair a sick computer, install a new...

When it comes to installing Windows Vista, most people just use the DVD they got at the store and then save that DVD just in case they need to use it for an emergency boot disk in the future....

It is much easier to clone and transfer the contents of a USB drive than it is a hard drive. While cloning and transferring hard drive data will require you to spend much of your time installing a...

Burning or mounting an image file to a USB flash drive is a great way to install an operating system or create a bootable drive without the physical disc. An ISO (recognized by the .iso file...

A microSD card is a memory card that is used in cellular phones, MP3 players and digital cameras. The card itself is very small, about the size of a dime. In order to be used with a desktop or...

Transferring files from one hard drive to another is a simple way of sharing files and more. Portable hard drives vary in size; therefore, some drives are better suited for storing large media...

Most users install Microsoft's Windows Vista from a DVD, then save the DVD in case they run into trouble down the road. In many cases, this approach works well. But DVDs are fragile, vulnerable to...

In the early days of home computing, it was common to receive a "boot disk" with your new computer for use in case something went wrong with your operating system. Back then, most computers had...

The invention of digital photography has opened a whole new world for storing photographs. There is no longer any need to keep boxes and boxes of prints on hand, and it has become much easier and...

The difference between data CDs and music CDs is the way bytes within the music CD are embedded in its sub-channels. This difference is so minute, though, that to the average consumer, as well as...

Adding a second hard drive to your computer is an excellent way to provide additional storage space and backup capacity. When you install a second hard drive you can use that extra space to back...

Moving files from one folder or drive to another using Windows XP is a cakewalk--with one exception. Burning files onto a CD requires a few extra steps, perhaps remnants of a time when CDs were a...

A jump drive (also called a thumb drive, flash drive or USB drive) is a small data-storage device that plugs into the USB port on your computer. It can be used to transfer files from one computer...

For several years following the late 1980s, IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) technology reigned supreme in the field of storage equipment. IDE was once the hard drive standard, and further...

If you have made the switch from a desktop to a laptop, you may find yourself with some extra hard drives lying around, some of which may have important data you would like to access on your...

Used primarily in digital cameras, Compact Flash (CF) cards are small, portable memory for your electronic devices. Often when you purchase a new CF card, it comes unformatted. The card must be...

There might come a day when you find yourself needing more space on your computer or you might need to run a program on two different computers. That being the case, your solution might be to use...

A virtual memory page is a paging file that is created by your computer system to stimulate your physical RAM when it is running low. The virtual memory page is automatically set by default upon...

Whether you are purchasing a new computer for your home or new computers for an entire office, you are probably wondering what to do with all of that old equipment. You could just give the old...

Your current DVD drive is giving read errors. Perhaps you want to be able to copy discs faster with dual drives. Whatever the reason, you have decided to add a SATA DVD drive to your Windows...

The information personal computers contain can be extremely valuable, ranging from manuscripts to tax information to family videos and photos. To avoid losing important information stored on a...

Shredding floppy disks helps protect your privacy. An ordinary paper/CD shredder won't suffice because of the metal disk in the center. Shredders that can handle the whole floppy disk---metal...

The specification for CD-R has been around since 1988. However, CD burners as we know them weren't widely available until the late mid-'90s. It did not take long for units to become cheaper and...

When you first purchase a secondary hard drive to perform additional storage duties on your computer, you most likely need to format it to run properly. A secondary hard drive does not have the...

Computers allow us to handle large amounts of material. In addition to saving data on their hard drives, users should consider backing up files and systems.

If you have too little space on your Compaq Presario PC, you may want to add an additional hard drive to increase the storage capacity and make your computer more useful. The price of hard drive...

All of the hardware devices in a computer require drivers in order to operate. Drivers are small software programs that the operating system understands and uses to control the hardware. If your...

Having a DVD drive on your HP computer can transform it from a simple device to a full entertainment center. With a working DVD player, you can watch your favorite movies and video clips in the...