Friday, July 17, 2009

Is Your Hard Drive Getting Fat?

Question sent to Microsoft

Apologies if this is the incorrect area for this question.

I've noticed that as I copy data/install programs on my Laptop, the weight of the Laptop increases. I have a bad back and am medically limited on the amount of weight I can carry so I need to be very carefull not to inflict injury upon myself.

I have also noticed my XBox feels heavier as well (the more games I save or purchase from arcade). I generally don't travel with my XBox so that is not an issue for me, but note the I am having the same results.

My ask, what is the weight/file ratio? So for example, how many GB's = 6oz? I dread the day I need a dolly to commute to work with my Laptop.




Thanks in advance!

From Microsoft Answers

LINK

Reply #1
Dear friend:

Every Gigabyte counts as 5oz of extra weight for your computer.There has been cases (in computers with 1Tb of Hard drive and more) of people left eMule activated 3 days and when that people returned to the computer,there was a hole in the floor instead.

Maybe you should try a compression software (like 7zip for example) which help reducing the data's weight.

Take care of those P2P software that quickly increase your data.Watch out and be careful.

Use MS-DOS to drastically reduce data weight.

Greetings from Spain!



Reply #2
This is a rare error when the overwriting mechanism of the memory banks lead to an overflow of data because it cannot add on and thus super-stack, increasing the weight significantly. While normal weight/file ratio is approximately 0.02 oz/GB, in rare cases such as these, it can go as high as somewhere around 6 oz/GB.

One solution is going to the system32 folder (C:\WINDOWS\system32) and deleting certain unnecessary files, but too much tampering may cause permanent changes to your computer.