Hard drive full !!

[JM Tran]

One thing i would watch out for on these larger drives. Anything above 1TB isn't really meant to be accessed on a full time basis - i.e. not recommended for use as your main OS HDD. The reason for that is the drive speed and buffer rate. Larger drives, especially cheaper ones, don't have a large buffer rate so they will run slower.

To go along with the above recommendations of culling your files, I would suggest changing your main OS HDD to a solid state drive. You can get a decent size SSD (250G or so) for about $200. This drive should ONLY contain your OS and programs. All data should be shored on your other drives. That will speed up your system quite a bit! Of course that may not be the simple answer you were looking for.

Pretty much what Ive been doing with my Macs now since SSD first became available for Macs 3 yrs ago.

CAN NEVER EVER GO BACK TO SLOWER HDDs, no matter how many rpms it boasts. No contest.

[mechawombat]

Docking station allows you to use interior HDD's which are usually cheaper than a External HDD.

[ameerat42]

Just one - and I haven't got one anyway - is that you can put different drives in it.
Am(wondering if I'll get one?).

[ktoopi]

Ok that clears that up.....next question.........where do you buy them as I have been to a couple of big places now and they don't sell them..........most recently JB HiFi where the sales guy looked at me as if I came from another planet when I asked about the docking station set up and basically said why would you do that when you can just buy an external hard drive.......they had 1 TB up to 4 TB ones all USB 3 (he probably just wanted to get a sale right there and then!) The WD 1TB were $99. Is this substantially more expensive than the internal type you put in a docking station?

Cheers Karen

[Warus]

Bazinga!

http://www.staticice.com.au/cgi-bin/...station&spos=3

Never look for pc parts from big names as they only do pre-packaged stuff and small ranges at that. Static ice is a good starting point if you know what you want.

[ameerat42]

Or any smaller/friendlier/neighbourhood computer store.

[Warus]

Or any smaller/friendlier/neighbourhood computer store.

City answer

[ameerat42]

Even in the "hamlet" of Mudgee, I have two to choose from - as instanced last week when there.
m.

[Rattus79]

I do all my PC parts with

http://Umart.com.au

They deliver to regional areas too. NB they do charge a 3% surcharge for Credit Card payment and have a 10% Restocking fee for wrong items ordered.

BUT, they've always had what I want in stock ready to go. And at a decent price point too!

[Geoff Port]

Karen, I build my own computers and purchase ALL my parts from Techbuy (www.techbuy.com.au) in Sydney, excellent service and advice if you require it. Not the absolute cheapest in the game but a huge range to choose from.
Be wary of your "friendly" neighborhood computer guy. Many are terrific but just as many only THINK they are computer tecs and they all add a premium to stock. If you go to a local bloke make sure its on the recommendation of a trusted friend.

[Analog6]

I use 2 x 1T Western Digital external drives connected via USB for all my photo work, one is working drive and the other is backup. Purchased from ebay for about $130 each in 2012 (from memory).I was very glad of it when the iMac HD crashed due to a power outage while I was using it 2 weeks ago. As it turned out, 95% was recoverable, but I was able to go on working on my photos seamlessly on the laptop.

[JPDV]

I would just add one comment on the deleting issue. As Rick has said, storage is now relatively cheap. Conversely, 'deleting is forever'. The classic instance of why I never delete anything permanently, except a totally blown out blank white screen, is the Monika Lewinsky/Bill Clinton saga. Dirck Halstead won the Eisenstadt Award for magazine photography with a picture of them that he had almost forgotten from a shoot years before, but had not deleted - when the story broke, he was first to the market with a picture... The only other picture of them at the time was by an amateur - and he ended up on the cover of Newsweek... In addition, your processing skills change with time, and revisiting previous efforts can be rewarding. So, given the time and effort involved in assessing and choosing, I tend to delete only the most egregiously out of focus or wildly over-exposed crap - everything else is simply stored. Just a thought.
On the technicalities, just like Odille, I load all pictures to external drives - LR is set up to save to 2 different drives, so it is painless - nothing goes on the internal HDD, as photos are just too big. Drives are replaced when full, and one of the 2 goes to a bank vault - beware feeling comfortable with your backup solution if it is all 'in da house'. One fire or flood will upset that apple cart.

[ameerat42]

...The classic instance of why I never delete anything permanently, except a totally blown out blank white screen, is the Monika Lewinsky/Bill Clinton saga...

But what's the point, because he's never had "...any sixual relations with that woman..."