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I feel really stupid and blonde posting this, but...

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
...my hard drive is running out of space (as in, drastically). Over half of what I have is music, so as I save for an external hard drive, I want to know:

If I put all my music into zipped folders, will it all still play in Windows Media Player/whatever else I feel like using?

It's probably obvious, but I want to check before I do it and discover it doesn't.
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Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Why don't you try it and see?
  • Teh_GerbilTeh_Gerbil Posts: 13,332 Born on Earth, Raised by The Mix
    It will if you leave the folder open, but it isn't worth doing tbh. It'd just slow everything down, consume system resources and piss you off. Run the System Cleanup tool, check for huge files you don't need, and try using this to help you (it is an awesome tool.)

    As for an external HDD, is it worth it? Will you really NEED an external one to take with you places, or would an internal one do the job just as well?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Teh_Gerbil wrote:
    It will if you leave the folder open, but it isn't worth doing tbh. It'd just slow everything down, consume system resources and piss you off. Run the System Cleanup tool, check for huge files you don't need, and try using this to help you (it is an awesome tool.)

    As for an external HDD, is it worth it? Will you really NEED an external one to take with you places, or would an internal one do the job just as well?
    I've already got rid of all the shit I don't need. Already done System Cleanup. And I've still only got about 10% of space left. 4.06GB free out of 37.2. 18.5GB of what I've got is music. So yes, an external HDD would be relatively useful.

    Mist - I could do that, but that would take a very large amount of time for it not to work.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    just buy a cheap internal drive, and buy an external usb casing for you to put it in for £15
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Can I put an extra drive in my laptop?

    *is stupid and doesn't know these things*
  • Teh_GerbilTeh_Gerbil Posts: 13,332 Born on Earth, Raised by The Mix
    Ah, laptop. Well, probably not, but as MrG sys, it is cheaper to buy a USB enclosure and just buy a normal HDD and put it in.

    You CAN replace hte laptop drive with a bigger one though, most likley, and copt the data over.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Teh_Gerbil wrote:
    Ah, laptop. Well, probably not, but as MrG sys, it is cheaper to buy a USB enclosure and just buy a normal HDD and put it in.

    You CAN replace hte laptop drive with a bigger one though, most likley, and copt the data over.
    And how much would that cost me?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Buy a dvd writer instead. You will never run out of space again.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    icey wrote:
    Buy a dvd writer instead. You will never run out of space again.

    This is what I got told to do - put all music and other stuff on to a DVD/CD. This also means that you won't lose everything if the laptop crashes.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I have 40GB now. I've had it since October. I think my best bet is about 80.

    I'm still gonna have to do some saving. Fuck.

    I've *somehow* managed to get my free space up to 8.90GB by deleting a load of programs I'll never use, and figuring out which of my downloads I could delete. Still less than 25% of free space though. Sigh.

    Edit: the reason I'm not just deleting all my music/DVD-ing it is because a) my stereo is broken, and b) my mp3 player deletes stuff when it syncs with my computer if I've deleted it off here. I can probably figure out how to make it not do that, but I'll be fucked if I'm doing that right now :p.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Franki wrote:
    Mist - I could do that, but that would take a very large amount of time for it not to work.


    I don't see why. Clearly you would only test on one file, and not the whole lot. It would take like two minutes.

    Anyway, other people have made suggestions so :hyper:
  • Teh_GerbilTeh_Gerbil Posts: 13,332 Born on Earth, Raised by The Mix
    Mist wrote:
    I don't see why. Clearly you would only test on one file, and not the whole lot. It would take like two minutes.

    Anyway, other people have made suggestions so :hyper:

    Yes, but why would she zip every file individually? That just makes no sense! And also bears no relevance to the result. It is like zipping and then running notepad, then expecting to be able to do the same with Half Life 2 because they are both programs!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Teh_Gerbil wrote:
    Yes, but why would she zip every file individually? That just makes no sense! And also bears no relevance to the result. It is like zipping and then running notepad, then expecting to be able to do the same with Half Life 2 because they are both programs!
    I wasn't talking about zipping every individual file. I was talking about zipping all my downloads into one folder, and then zipping all of my artist folders.

    But I'm not going to do that now.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    for a good clean up ...get system mechanic pro 6
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Franki wrote:
    ...my hard drive is running out of space (as in, drastically). Over half of what I have is music, so as I save for an external hard drive, I want to know:

    If I put all my music into zipped folders, will it all still play in Windows Media Player/whatever else I feel like using?

    It's probably obvious, but I want to check before I do it and discover it doesn't.

    Very pointless. If your music is already compressed - MP3, MPC, Ogg, etc, then it'll not get any smaller in a zip file.

    If your music is not compressed(a full-length .WAV file), then there are a variety of codecs available that will enable you to compress your music in a lossless format(40-60% reduction in size) or a lossy format(90% reduction in size).
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    There is an external lacie 250gb on www.ebuyer.com for £90 inc. delivery. Can't beat that really!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Teh_Gerbil wrote:
    Yes, but why would she zip every file individually? That just makes no sense!


    :banghead:

    I was suggesting an answer to her original quesiton, which was "would it work if I zipped my files". You could find the answer with a very small set of files (or just one) in less time than it would have taken to post this thread.

    She didn't ask about how well it would perform.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    There is an external lacie 250gb on www.ebuyer.com for £90 inc. delivery. Can't beat that really!
    Except I don't need 250GB :p.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I'd say if you got it you could have more music :D
    This is true. But I don't think I could use up 250GB of it :p.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Franki wrote:
    This is true. But I don't think I could use up 250GB of it :p.

    But it's better to have too much spac than not enough. And you may use it; you never know.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Franki wrote:
    This is true. But I don't think I could use up 250GB of it :p.
    Can we laugth at you in a years time when the same thing happens again.

    Disk is always 90% full.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I agree with everyone about the massive external hard drive thingy. It'll be more cash outright but potentially save you more in the future.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Big Gay wrote:
    Can we laugth at you in a years time when the same thing happens again.

    Disk is always 90% full.
    I only have 40GB atm, and I've put every one of the CD's I've been building up for 4/5 years on there, plus others, and several hundred downloads.

    I'm not gonna use 250GB in a year.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Can you use this external hard drive thingies for laptops?

    I think I need one. I keep getting messages saying the memory on my computer is low.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    *Stacey* wrote:
    Can you use this external hard drive thingies for laptops?

    I think I need one. I keep getting messages saying the memory on my computer is low.
    :yes:

    Hence why I was asking about it :p.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Hehe. I never knew you had a laptop. I failed to read that little fact. Oops
  • Indrid ColdIndrid Cold Posts: 16,688 Skive's The Limit
    *Stacey* wrote:
    Hehe. I never knew you had a laptop. I failed to read that little fact. Oops
    You don't have to have a laptop to use those...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Franki wrote:
    I only have 40GB atm, and I've put every one of the CD's I've been building up for 4/5 years on there, plus others, and several hundred downloads.

    I'm not gonna use 250GB in a year.

    But when you see the light and get a good stereo hooked up to your computer, you'll stop using inferior compression techniques and go to lossless, which will immediately increase the disk space used four-fold :).
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    *Stacey* wrote:
    Can you use this external hard drive thingies for laptops?

    I think I need one. I keep getting messages saying the memory on my computer is low.

    memory is different to disk space. If you need more memory then buying an external hard drive won't help you at all. You'd have to get more memory instead.

    If you're getting "disk nearly full" message though, then go for it.
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