Category: Hard Drive

Reclaim Space – Remove an Unnecessary Windows Hibernation File

Yesterday, I wrote an article about a great little utility called WinDirStat and its ability to create a bitmap of what files and folders are consuming the most space on your drives. One thing I did discover was a huge 9GB hiberfil.sys file on my C: partition that was serving no real purpose as I …

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Visually Track Hard Drive Space with WinDirStat

WinDirStat - Folder Summary Screen (Completed)

Here’s a quick tip for this evening. If there is one thing that Windows has lacked all of these years it is a way to quickly assess from a macro level which folders are taking up the most space without having to take a “divide and conquer” approach by right clicking each folder, going to …

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The 2TB Barrier – What Does it Mean for You?

Throughout last year I made a couple of mentions of the 2TB (two terabyte) barrier for physical storage in modern computers but didn’t take the opportunity to flesh out exactly what it means for the regular consumer out there. In this article I am going to explain why this is important and what you need …

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Sony PlayStation 3 Slim Preview

Yesterday, hopefully you would have seen the video unboxing of the Sony PlayStation 3 Slim (320GB model). Today, I recorded the preview video to show you around the console (in particular the stuff on the front, back and also the little flap to unscrew the hard drive should you wish to remove and replace it). I …

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Panasonic Viera Plasma 3DTV Preview

In the follow up to yesterday’s video unboxing the Panasonic Viera 50″ Plasma 3DTV (TH-P50VT20A) I also recorded an initial preview of the unit to show the various interfaces that can be found on the television such as the various sockets, buttons, vents and mounting points. Importantly, I also cover the pedestal is fastened (if …

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HP Retires MediaSmart Server Line – Death Knell for Windows Home Server?

Windows Home Server “Vail” (the second version of Windows Home Server) slated for release by Microsoft next year already suffered a significant setback and subsequent public backlash last week after the announcement that its Drive Extender functionality was to be dropped. Drive Extender provided the very popular storage pooling and selective folder redundancy features found …

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SlySoft Discontinuing Lifetime Upgrades

It seems that many good things come to an end far sooner than we would expect or would hope. SlySoft, the creator of such software including CloneCD, CloneDVD and AnyDVD will be ceasing sales of software including free lifetime upgrades for software from 1 January 2011. Whilst this is disappointing news, this does mean you …

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Windows Home Server – Vail is Fail After Abandoning Drive Extender

Windows Home Server Vail Fail

In a hark back to the flop of the Windows Vista “wow is now” campaign Microsoft has seemingly shot itself square in the foot by announcing that the second version of Drive Extender (or DE) technology from Windows Home Server was being dropped. For those of you wanting to know about the original Windows Home …

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4K Hard Drives – Prep Them Properly

Western Digital Advanced Format Hard Drive Label

Some of us may have come across the term “4K hard drives” or perhaps “advanced format” hard drives. For many, these terms would simply drown in the sea of other confusing computer terminology that techies have come to love and consumers have come to hate. So, the first question to get out of the way …

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Windows Home Server V2 Beta Available

Just a quick one this evening. For those of you who are interested, Windows Home Server “Vail” (for home or home office use) and “Aurora” (for small business use) have been released on Microsoft Connect. What has really got me excited are some of the new features, specifically: the ability to natively backup MacOS X …

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