hard drive

Should USB hard drives use mains electricity?

Digital Living I was thinking of purchasing an external hard drive for my laptop for backup purposes. A self-powered USB storage device typically uses a 2.5-inch laptop hard drive. So-called 'self-powered' USB hard drives are very convenient, but because of the...

Tags: hard drive, power, self, usb

25 October 2007, 15:57

Speed up your bootup time

Digital Living Don't even think about mucking around with your hard drive without backing up all your files. It's not a sign of old age, it's the ever-growing accumulation of detritus that various applications and hardware deposit on your hard drive when you...

2 August 2006, 16:56

Is it worth bringing a PS3 back from the US?

Digital Living The PlayStation 3 (read our full review here) comes in two versions in the US -- the basic version with a 20GB hard drive and the high-end version with a 60GB hard drive, Wi-Fi and a multiformat memory card reader.

21 March 2007, 16:39

How to get music onto your Walkman phone

Digital Living Start by checking if you have enough space left on your hard drive -- you need at least 400MB. To check your hard drive capacity on a Windows PC, click on the Windows Start menu and select My Computer; right click on your hard drive (usually...

31 August 2006, 17:18

Build the ultimate quiet PC

Digital Living The last thing you want during a tear-jerking love scene is the click of a hard drive or the whir of a DVD drive. Whereas some drives are designed for high capacity, others, such as the Samsung HD300LJ hard drive (£90 from Quiet PC) are designed...

Tags: efficiency, controller, supply, attached

7 September 2006, 16:49

Taking your television for a drive

Digital Living The Freeview PVR allowed us to store programmes on a hard drive. Well, the TV Drive is that buzzword made real -- it's a convergence play that brings together the power of a computer hard drive and digital storage with a networked cable box...

25 July 2006, 17:11

What's the best budget PC for all the family?

Digital Living Its 80GB hard drive is big enough to store around 1,500 music CDs, or around 120 movies, which might sound like a lot but your kids will fill it up in no time at all -- and this is when the bundled DVD burner comes in handy.

29 November 2006, 16:23

Can I make my PC faster for free?

Digital Living Use the Add/Remove Applications wizard in the Windows Control Panel to get rid of superfluous programs, then defragment your hard drive, as this can increase the speed at which your PC locates and opens files, and reduces those annoying crunchy...

11 May 2006, 12:14

One gadget that does it all

Digital Living Of the products you mention, the palmOne LifeDrive comes closest to meeting your requirements, because it is the only one with a hard drive. However, the hard drive is only 4GB, and for about the same money you could buy four 1GB SD cards.

15 November 2005, 16:37

Get more from Sony's PSP

Digital Living First of all, some caveats: you'll need to have an existing collection of video sitting on your computer's hard drive if you want to get the most out of your PSP. The program will also show the contents of both your hard drive and your Memory Stick.

1 September 2005, 15:54

Can I buy a cheap video-editing PC?

Digital Living Your final major consideration should be a large hard drive. What size depends entirely on the amount of video you intend to store, but as a rough guide, 1GB of hard drive space is enough to store around 1 hour of high-quality video footage.

10 August 2006, 11:55

Replace your iPod's battery

Digital Living First- and second-generation iPods have the battery attached directly to the hard drive by two strips of rubber featuring some sort of evil adhesive. Use your screwdriver or another thin, flat implement of choice to loosen the battery from the hard...

11 May 2005, 12:43

Make the most of high-def content

Digital Living You'll need one of the company's new TVDrive boxes, which is also Telewest's first hard drive recorder. It's quite a strange combination -- Telewest is somewhat lagging behind the times by only now offering hard drive recording, but it does support...

13 February 2006, 9:37

Lost on the Underground with my PVR

Digital Living You could simply run out of the house, grabbing your portable screen from its stand on the TV and know that it contained most of the recent programming on your hard drive. With a main screen, an electronic programme guide, hard-drive based...

26 September 2005, 10:38

The world's cheapest camcorder

Digital Living I looked at the camcorder in my hand and said, "Ahhh.so this thing doesn't actually have any tape inside it -- you're using some kind of ultra-cheap hard-drive or flash mechanism? Steve smiled and held up the other card and said, "When you...

17 January 2006, 11:17