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Will lots of songs on your computer slow it down?

Jack Denfeld

09:37 / 22.02.07

I'm thinking about putting all my cds onto the trusty old computer and was wondering if it would slow down my computer or anything after i had so many songs on it. I don't really understand computers so maybe it's a dumb question. Do you have all your music on your computer or on an external hard drive or something?

Mon Oncle Ignatius

10:38 / 22.02.07

It shouldn't do, no, unless you fill the hard drive so full it has no space on it for other programmes - or if you're using Windows, for a swap file (which is a section of the HD the computer uses as extra memory if the RAM becomes full).

An external hard drive is also a good idea for storing all your music though. They're quite cheap for huge drives these days.

Jack Denfeld

10:46 / 22.02.07

Would an external hard drive always just be a click away? Like a little icon to access the music while I'm doin other stuff?

rizla mission

10:48 / 22.02.07

Having 65GB of music on my 100GB HD Mac has definitely made it slower in terms of opening/running programs than it was when it was new & empty, but not much as to make it a problem, and it still very rarely freezes/fucks up when asked to do hard things (unless it's fed a scratched CD it doesn't like, but that's another story..).

Jack Denfeld

10:52 / 22.02.07

I guess I should be fine then. You guys keep every single song you own on computer?

Mon Oncle Ignatius

11:10 / 22.02.07

The external Hd should just show up as an icon on your desktop, or as a drive with a letter (for example E: ) on Windows, and it should also be hot-swappable (that is, you can plug in and remove the USB or Firewire cable without having to switch the computer off). I'm not sure how external HDs work on Macs, but I'm certain it would be very easy.

I don't have all my music on my HD yet, but every CD I get I rip and save there, along with downloaded songs of course. I'm working on the rest, slowly.

I haven't noticed any apprecable slowdown under Linux (though the Mac issue with bad CDs Rizla notes also applies to Linux, bah), but I've also got about 80GB of space left at the moment.

Kiltartan Cross

14:39 / 22.02.07

I'm not sure how external HDs work on Macs, but I'm certain it would be very easy.

Pretty much the same, you plug it in and an icon appears on the desktop. I use a bunch of LaCie removable HDDs for storing and moving large video and music files between Mac and PC, they've been thoroughly reliable.

Z. deScathach

17:51 / 22.02.07

Best thing to do is to add a second hard drive, then you'll have no performance degradation whatsoever. Another solution is to partition your harddrive, but that would require a reinstall. External hd's are a bit slower than a secong internal one, but that's probably the best solution shy of adding another internal drive.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

19:27 / 22.02.07

Odd timing... I'm in the middle of putting all my CDs on the computer, along with a LOT of library/eMusic music that I've accumulated over the years. I'm at 26 gigs and counting, with about 400 CDs to go. I'm getting a bit distressed.

ONLY NICE THINGS

21:13 / 22.02.07

Why? That's what the 80 gig iPod is made for. And 60 gigabytes or so of music costs about 40 quid to store on a portable hard drive - less if you start with a bigger drive - data storage is absurdly cheap.

juan de marcos

21:13 / 22.02.07

Last week I finally finished ripping my collection of 1200 CD's. It took me about 2 years at a very slow rate of 10 cd's a week.
The collection (including stuff from libraries and friends) takes 150 G of space. I have two internal drives, one of 160 G, partitioned 60/100 and one of 250 G, partitioned 50/200. The latter contains all the mp3's. In addition I use two external 250 G drives as backup and swap medium.

Crestmere

09:49 / 05.03.07

My hard drive used to be 2/3 full with music and it slowed my computer down.

Now I have a 120 GB external hard drive (about half full right now) and I keep maybe 2-3 GB on my internal one.

Phex: Dorset Doom

22:40 / 05.03.07

Y'know, I used to work in an electronics store and somebody asked me if putting songs on an iPod would make it heavier.

Jack Denfeld

10:35 / 18.03.07

Is it difficult to transfer your entire itunes library to an external hard drive?

Mike Modular

11:34 / 18.03.07

No, it's easy. Just drag it all over then change the library location in Preferences. You might need to delete all the old files and then drag the stuff from the new external drive back in, to make sure it's always looking in the right place, but consolidating the library might be all you need to do (that's in the Advanced menu) I can't remember.

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