Posts by Benjamin King2

First things first—you should probably shrink the space allocated to your Recycle Bin and System Restore points. By default, the OS just hogs a massive chunk of your drive for those, which is honestly pretty overkill. While you're at it, run Disk Cleanup and clear out all that junk like old Windows update backups and other useless clutter that's just sitting there taking up room.

Look, if you’re actually happy with how your rig is performing right now, then don't touch a thing. But, if you're just looking for an excuse to blow some cash, you might want to look into picking up an SSD for your boot drive. That'll make a difference.

Just have your buddy reinstall Windows for you. Seriously—stop asking questions about practical software.

Look, this isn't some basic portable drive—it’s actually a Network Attached Storage unit (NAS)—basically a dedicated enclosure housing 4 TB drives that plugs directly into your router via an Ethernet cable.

There’s nothing for you to unlock—nothing is locked, so I don't get why you think your cores aren't all firing properly. And honestly, boot times are a total toss-up; it all depends on your specific hardware and software setup, but hitting the desktop just 15 seconds after hitting the power button? That’s lightning fast.

Just borrow a monitor from someone and give it a shot.

darkmarlin16 said:that's exactly what I was wondering about🙂

thanks a ton 🙂

and one more thing 😁
is that case actually huge—like, can you just carry it under your arm? 😬
and can I find it at Best Buy? 🤷

The only thing I managed to track down is this:

Go ahead, head over there and ask—you might as well bring your drive along for the ride... honestly, the case is barely any bigger than the drive itself, maybe a few millimeters of extra space on each side.

brightranger52 said:I really need a massive external hard drive. Ideally something in the 6 or 8 TB range. Does anyone have actual experience with those? From what I've seen online, it looks like WD is the only one making them that big?

As far as I know, the biggest option out there is from Seagate, which is 4 TB—where exactly are you seeing these massive WD drives?

Give this a read regarding Thunderbolt, since it looks like you haven't quite grasped the situation yet: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4832/t...splay-review/1

Look, you really need to decide what you actually want out of a computer—if you're planning on gaming, just forget about the Macintosh entirely, and honestly, buying one just to install Windows on it is an even bigger waste of time.

PATA is the older standard—you know, the one with that chunky 40-pin connector. You just plug the drive directly into the matching header inside your PC case, and then you've got your external USB port on the chassis to hook everything up to the computer.

darkmarlin16 said:I mean, honestly, who cares—what am I even supposed to do with an internal drive if I try to turn it into an external one anyway?😕

Any idea when those cables are actually gonna show up? You happen to know?🤷

So, if you're looking to turn an internal drive into an external one—totally doable—all you really need is a decent enclosure. Just make sure you check whether you're dealing with a PATA or a SATA drive first, depending on what kind of hardware you've got lying around.

I was digging through some old archives today—don't ask why, I just have a thing for digital archaeology—and I stumbled upon this deep dive regarding external storage setups. It’s one of those pieces that really gets into the weeds of how we manage data, specifically looking at the jump between older tech and what we're using now. It basically breaks down the whole headache of managing high-capacity drives—you know, the kind where you're constantly praying the connection doesn't drop right when you're mid-transfer—and compares different ways to handle large volumes of files. There's a lot of talk about the reliability of certain brands versus others, which is always a fun rabbit hole to fall down since "reliable" is such a subjective term in the tech world until the moment your drive clicks and dies. Anyway, if you've ever spent three hours staring at a progress bar only to have it fail at 99%, this is probably right up your alley. Check it out here: http://www.amazon.com/2TB-hard-drive
I was digging through some old tech archives today—you know how it goes, one minute you're looking for a driver and the next you're three hours deep into a rabbit hole—and I stumbled upon this old write-up about external drives. It’s basically a breakdown of the 2 TB options that were floating around back in the day. Honestly, looking back at these specs feels like reading a history book, except instead of ancient empires, we're talking about spinning platters and interface speeds that feel prehistoric now. If you're still rocking an old setup or just curious about how much things have changed, check out the details here: http://www.amazon.com/2TB-hard-drive. It’s interesting to see how the hardware landscape shifted from those early high-capacity models to what we consider "standard" today. Not that anyone actually misses the noise of an old mechanical drive grinding away on a desk, right? Anyway, just a bit of nostalgia for the tech nerds out there.

So, if you’re trying to hook up a drive to your case but you’ve already burned through every single available port—which happens way more often than people admit—you can just grab a PCI card like this one. You plug the drive directly into the card, and honestly, it's basically the same deal as plugging it straight into the motherboard. Simple enough. I was digging through some old tech reviews earlier—you know how it goes, getting lost in the digital rabbit hole—and I stumbled upon this piece about external storage. It’s one of those deep dives that really makes you rethink how much we rely on these little plastic bricks sitting on our desks. The whole thing basically breaks down the nuances of high-capacity drives and why, despite everything moving to the cloud, having a physical backup is still the only way to sleep at night. There's a lot of talk about speed vs. reliability, which is the eternal struggle, isn't it? You want the lightning-fast transfer speeds of an SSD, but then you look at the price tag and suddenly that bulky spinning platter looks a lot more tempting—even if it does sound like a miniature jet engine taking off whenever you try to move a large file. It touches on some stuff regarding data integrity too—something most people ignore until their entire digital life vanishes into the ether because they trusted a cheap, no-name drive from a random corner of an online marketplace. Honestly, it's a solid read if you're someone who actually cares about where their data lives. It's not just about capacity; it's about knowing that when you plug that thing in, it'll actually work. Simple as that.

Aaron Johnson55 said:Thanks again, Benjamin King2.

I was honestly banking on a much more straightforward way to handle adding this—something less... complicated, let's say. Drive letter. Always comes back to the drive letter, doesn't it? It’s funny how we spend all this time worrying about hardware speeds and whether our Western Digital drives are actually performing at their rated capacity—which, let's be honest, they rarely do—but then everything falls apart because of a simple drive letter assignment. You think you've got your setup dialed in, your USB3 connections are solid, and your data is sitting pretty on that 2 TB drive you grabbed from Amazon, only to realize the system decided to rename your partition for absolutely no reason. It’s like walking into your own kitchen and finding out someone moved the silverware to the garage. Just... why? Anyway, if you're staring at a missing mount point or a path that just isn't working, it usually boils down to the OS being indecisive about which letter belongs to which piece of silicon. Fix the mapping, fix your life. Or don't. I'm just saying..

Maybe I’m better off just merging those partitions on my smaller drives into one big single volume—that shouldn't be an issue, right? I'm assuming I can still make use of both the A: and B: drives if I do that?

You can actually merge those partitions using this—it's just a freeware tool: Check out this link if you need some help messing around with your drive partitions—it’s the personal version of Partition Wizard: http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm

You can actually use both A and B for drives—it's not like you're stuck choosing just one.

Yeah, if you’re working with those beefier external enclosures, they usually come with their own dedicated power adapter.

Now, regarding that annoying 26-drive letter limit—you can actually bypass it by using what’s called a drive path. Let’s say you’ve got partitions labeled P, R, S, and T on that external drive. Instead of cluttering up your list, just create a blank folder on your C: drive and call it something like Mybook. Then, head over to Disk Management and, for each of those partitions, change the drive letter to point to the specific mounting folder you just made. Once you open that Mybook folder in Windows Explorer, you'll see the contents of all those mounted partitions right there. You can dump them all into one single folder if you want, or get organized and make a separate folder for each partition. After that, just go back into Disk Management and delete the P, R, S, and T letters—that frees them up for other devices. From then on, you'll access everything through that mount folder. It’s much cleaner.

I found this great visual breakdown that explains the whole process perfectly: http://www.amazon.com/2TB-hard-drive

darkmarlin16 said:What can I pick up for $67, is there anything decent at Chipotles for that price?

I've got this old 80GB hard drive sitting at home 😁—it’s SATA, but my PC uses the older IDE setup (or maybe it's the other way around 😁, the PC has the newer one)—so, are there any cables I can buy to hook that old thing up to the motherboard? How many cables would I need, and can I completely wipe everything off this old drive (it’s got Windows, music, games, and all that other junk)

Since we're talking about external drives here, are you looking to mount this inside your computer case, or do you want to use it as a portable drive in an external enclosure? You can definitely wipe the drive—just format it if it’s only got one partition, but if it’s split up into multiple partitions, just delete them all and create one fresh one.

Aaron Johnson55 said:I need a high-quality, reliable external HDD with a large capacity—ideally 2TB.

My computer has both USB3 and eSATA ports, so it would be great to take advantage of those. It’s not a dealbreaker, but it wouldn't be bad if the HDD featured hardware encryption.

What's the actual difference between those various Western Digital lines (Elements, Studio, Live...)?

Should I go Portable or not?

What do you guys recommend? (I value quality over price.)

I think your best bet would be to grab something like this: http://www.amazon.com/2TB-hard-drive

A 2TB drive costs only about $50 more, and for that, you get an extra terabyte. Plus, it has hardware encryption.

The Mybook Essential is really the only series that offers that—stuff like Elements or Passport usually lacks encryption or only supports smaller capacities.

As far as hardware encryption goes, there are specialized enclosures out there, though I have to admit I haven't seen those specific ones for sale locally... something like this: http://www.addonics.com/products/dced256e.php

Portable enclosures are 2.5", and you just don't get that kind of massive capacity with them.

placidheron19 said:So basically, what I’ve got right now is supposedly top-tier 😕—but what I actually want to know is if there's anything comparable to http://accessories.dell.com/sna/prod...9&sku=320-8846 that comes in a 27" size?

Wait, you mentioned that hybrid monitor/TV combo isn't any good for gaming—so how is this current setup "the best" then? 😕

Look, the stuff I just listed are 127Hz monitors in the 27" range. Apple was the first to drop a model in this category, and both Samsung and Dell have released theirs recently—there really isn't a massive selection to choose from in this specific niche. From what I could gather, the Dell model sits around $650, while the Samsung version is about $100 more, and I couldn't track down a price for the Apple one. These are dedicated monitors in the same class as the AW2310, not those weird hybrid TV setups.

Let’s breathe some life back into this thread—and I don't just mean dumping more build lists. If you happen to stumble upon a killer deal on some hardware, feel free to drop the link right here. That should be our first priority: a daily update of actual sales. Honestly, I don't think we need to be constantly churning out new builds unless there’s a major shift in the landscape—you know, when a new generation of motherboards, CPUs, or GPUs actually hits the shelves.

We can break the builds down into four main categories: first, a basic "home office" setup for browsing, multimedia, and general work, and then three tiers of gaming rigs—budget, mid-range, and high-end. Though, let's be real, there’s no need to go overboard with the extreme enthusiast stuff for the high-end tier. The whole point is finding the absolute best bang for your buck so, don't feel obligated to grab everything from the same retailer. In fact, you shouldn't. The goal is simple: get the most performance possible for the least amount of cash.

I’m also dropping a link to a site packed with articles, benchmarks, reviews, and buyer's guides covering all sorts of hardware—especially peripherals. It’s a goldmine of useful info: http://www.digitalversus.com/all-products.html

One rule, though: please don't post any questions in here.

So, your options pretty much boil down to this:

Asus PG276H
Acer HN274H 3D
Or those Samsung models—the S27A950D and the S27A750D -> http://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php...&id=1294648344

As for where you're actually going to find them? Honestly, I have zero clue—I haven't seen any of these listed at my local Best Buy or anywhere else around here.

So, are Adata drives actually any good?

placidgull21 said:well, I've been looking at the estimates and it looks like we're aiming for around $200. The 6850s are sitting near $150, so I'm really hoping the 7850 doesn't jump way past that...

I’d say $250 is more likely: http://lenzfire.com/2011/12/entire-g...evealed-60538/

It’s not even about the quality—the hardware is going to pull its weight regardless of whether you're running one channel or eight. Unless you’re rocking some ancient gear that hasn't seen a power outlet since the early 2000s, you shouldn't run into any issues at all.

Michael Richardson69 said:So, I'm running Windows 7 right now, and I’m looking to get XP up and running on VirtualBox. If—hypothetically speaking—I download something through that XP instance, can I actually move it over to use on my Windows 7 setup?

What does "move it over" actually mean in this context?

Robert Sanchez82 said:I've got a question for you guys—which one of these two cards should I actually grab? Does that Hyper Memory option really make the Sapphire card a better bet than the ASUS, or is it just some marketing fluff I shouldn't be worrying about? If anyone could walk me through the reasoning for both, I’d really appreciate it.

Don't even bother looking at Hyper Memory—it’s pretty much useless unless you're rocking some bottom-of-the-barrel, low-end graphics card with pathetic onboard RAM that actually needs to borrow system memory just to function as a buffer.

Nicole Martin87 said:The Sound Blaster card—well, the idea is that if you have a more powerful computer, you get better recording and playback quality... though, of course, a beefier machine demands more RAM to keep up. It really just comes down to ensuring you actually set the recording quality within your specific software—which, frankly, isn't always an intuitive feature on other sound cards. Please, feel free to correct me if my reasoning is off...

Look, audio quality stays the same regardless of how much raw horsepower your PC has—you just have to meet the basic CPU and hard drive speed requirements. It’s a different beast whether you're working with one channel or eight. Honestly, considering how old this card is, any hard drive from the last ten years is going to be more than enough for the number of channels and the sampling rate we're talking about here.

RAM matters for the software side of things—basically, you don't want your system swapping to the hard drive because you're low on memory and choking out the disk controller. You just need to make sure you meet the software's system requirements depending on which program you're running.