Memory lapse: Hard drives save lives
Did you know that the first computer was designed to function like the human brain? Loosely speaking, in your brain you have programs (talents/skills), RAM (short-term memory), and a hard drive (long-term memory). You even have a “tree” structure in your head, like a computer, which explains why some things take longer to remember than others—you have to find it in the right subfolder of the right subfolder of the right folder. Now, in a human, they say the memory is the first thing to go. In a computer, however, you can always improve your memory.
The most important type of memory on a computer is Random Access Memory (RAM). This, like your short-term memory, keeps the things (your computer) needs to know in order to function at all times. In a computer, you can never have too much RAM. We’ve mentioned before the importance of having the upper limit of RAM installed when purchasing a new computer, or upgrading your RAM on a computer you already own. Two gigabytes is good and four is even better. You can survive on one gig if you have to, but we wouldn’t recommend it. And if you’re below 1 gig, it’s the equivalent of being a mental midget. Seek help right away!
Your computer’s long-term memory is its hard drive. These days, computers come with an ample amount of hard drive space. If your computer is older than two or three years, check how much memory there is on your hard drive. It should be listed in gigabytes. If it’s listed as megabytes instead, your computer desperately needs medical attention.
In any case, it never hurts to increase your hard drive space externally (the equivalent of a library of books to the human brain). You may be a heavy-duty computer user who needs more space, or you may want separate back-ups of your files. External hard drives are easy to use because all you do is plug them into a USB port. In almost all cases, Windows itself will “recognize” the device when you plug it in, and assign the device a drive letter (for example, E:\). You save to the device in the normal fashion. You can even install programs on it. External hard drives are not very large despite the huge amounts of data they hold; you can get them in comparatively diminutive sizes that easily fit on small desks. They’re also not terribly expensive; you can get hundreds of gigabytes for less than $100.
Another advantage to the external hard drive is protection from surges. If your area is prone to power surges, you can unplug the device’s USB and power cords when not in use. Most computers have some of their USB ports conveniently located right on the front of the machine. When you’re ready to remove the device from a USB port, click the little “Safely Remove Hardware” icon you’ll find in your system tray (near the time), and select the option to safely remove your device. It will tell you when you can take it out. It only takes a few seconds.
External hard drives and other memory devices can also be lifesavers. If you’ve had your computer for a few years, and have saved pictures, music, financial documents, etc. on your hard drive, a hard-drive crash can be catastrophic—and it happens all the time. You can take your computer to a company that recovers data off crashed hard drives, and pay a tidy sum—if there’s anything there to even recover. Then, you can buy a new computer, or get the old one fixed. If only you’d saved your data onto an external drive! Then you could skip the expensive data recovery, just stick in your device, and copy all your files back in. It’s as simple as an ole fashioned copy and paste! An external hard drive is really a computer insurance policy; you’ll feel safer knowing you can plug in that external hard drive and get back everything important to you.
Portable memory drives are a blessing to those who need to carry small or large amounts of data from place to place. These come in various different shapes and disk sizes. Most of the biggest ones are still small enough to fit in your purse or pocket, along with a small USB cord. Other portable memory drives are relatively tiny, and called by a variety of names: Jump Drive, Flash Drive, Thumb Drive, Memory Stick, USB Drive, or “That Little Saving Thingy,” take your pick. Flash drives, as we will call them, are small enough that you could wear them on your key ring, or tuck them into your purse or wallet. But even though flash drives may count as Post-It Notes compared to your computer’s entire memory system, they are still quite powerful, coming with disk space of anywhere from 256 megabytes to 8 gigabytes.
Portable hard drives and flash drives are able to hold much more information than you can carry around in the most gargantuan of briefcases. A real estate broker, for example, with hundreds of properties, could carry around a briefcase filled with files (hopefully, the right ones), or he or she could carry a tiny little device that contains all of their files. Any computer that has USB ports (and all new ones do) should be able to read the device. You can pull up full color pictures, charts, spreadsheets, databases, and documents quickly and easily. And not only are you more computer-literate with a memory device, but being paperless, you’re environmentally-friendly as well.
The Chinese have a proverb that reads, “The palest ink lasts longer than the most retentive memory.” The drives your computer uses are far more than pale ink. So go ahead, impress the kids, the neighbors, the in-laws. Get some extra memory for your computer, and turn it into a mega-brain.
You can e-mail the Ctrl Alt Divas Deborah Giljum and Lisa Holmes at crtl_alt_divas@hotmail.com
