Ran out of space.

amlptj · Jan 31, 2011

Hi, this is probably a stupid question but i know nothing about computers. Recently I've been trying to tape my classes with a web cam... but today it said my internal memory on my computer was FULL!!! So i deleted anything I didn't need, old documents, programs and games I don't use, but it barely cleared anything! Would these videos take up that much space? My real question is how many KB are in a GB??? Because the videos each are like 50 some million KB's is that like a shit one of memory?

I'm planning on getting an external harddrive today to hold the video, but is it the video's causing the memory loss?

alleycat · Jan 31, 2011

Videos take a lot of memory.

Yeah, just get a big external drive. There's relatively cheap these days.

And it's not exact, but just multiple by 1000 each time to go from KBs to MBs to GBs.

Cyia · Jan 31, 2011

Videos eat a massive amount of memory. An 8 gig card can only hold 2 hrs of high def filming. (Considering most laptops come with less than 5 gigs built-in, that's a lot of memory for 2 hours.) Definitely go with an external Hard Drive if you're going to be using a lot of footage.

Documents are lightweights when it comes to capacity.

Deleted member 42 · Jan 31, 2011

Keep in mind also that any drive needs to have at least 10% free space, because the comp puts temp files there that are later deleted.

alleycat · Jan 31, 2011

I would also suggest running a free cleaner program from time to time (such at ATF Cleaner); it's an easy way to clean out files you don't need to keep. If you haven't been doing this, you might be surprised at how much space will be freed.

Margarita Skies · Jan 31, 2011

alleycat said:
I would also suggest running a free cleaner program from time to time (such at ATF Cleaner); it's an easy way to clean out files you don't need to keep. If you haven't been doing this, you might be surprised at how much space will be freed.

This helped me out a lot! Thanks!

Edited to add: I am seriously considering aquiring an external hard drive to use exclusively for videos. I have a large hard drive, but one can never be too cautious.

BradCarsten · Jan 31, 2011

what format are you saving your videos in- some formats take up a lot more space than others.

Maryn · Jan 31, 2011

I'm not positive, but I think this week's Best Buy ad included a Seagate 3T external for something like $175. That's a lot of space.

Maryn, who scans the ads weekly

Deleted member 42 · Jan 31, 2011

One thing to remember about backup drives is that they too can go belly up.

A giant drive is cheaper--but it also means an efficient way of losing a lot of data at once.

whacko · Jan 31, 2011

amlptj said:
So i deleted anything I didn't need, old documents, programs and games I don't use, but it barely cleared anything!

I'd suggest also giving Disk Cleanup a go.

It's a simple little utility found by right clicking on your hard drive icon, selecting properties and then Disk Cleanup.

The chances are you'll have a whole load of unneeded Temp files, especially from t'internet, and the recycle bin may be choccablock too. So give that a go.

Oh, and it may take a while to calculate how much crap can be removed!

Regards

Whacko

Deleted member 42 · Jan 31, 2011

whacko said:
I'd suggest also giving Disk Cleanup a go.

It's a simple little utility found by right clicking on your hard drive icon, selecting properties and then Disk Cleanup.

The chances are you'll have a whole load of unneeded Temp files, especially from t'internet, and the recycle bin may be choccablock too. So give that a go.

Oh, and it may take a while to calculate how much crap can be removed!

I'd start it and walk away from the computer. I also would not run anything else at the same time. Shut down Web browsers, etc.

Margarita Skies · Jan 31, 2011

Maryn said:
I'm not positive, but I think this week's Best Buy ad included a Seagate 3T external for something like $175. That's a lot of space.

Maryn, who scans the ads weekly

Love your signature. I wish I could live by it right now. It's impossible being positive at all times. I am not feeling very positive right now.

Maryn · Jan 31, 2011

Well, if a gigantic external hard drive is not on the table, it's not on the table. So be it, right?

What our budget-conscious kids (adults) do is burn stuff to CD or DVD, or park it online (duplicating the back-up if it's important), then delete it from their hard drives, freeing up that space. Video still eats up a lot of space, but if that's what you want to do with your computer, then you just have to offload all other space-eaters.

I'm no expert, but some of the tips here would no doubt serve you well to take advantage of every bit of storage your computer has.

Maryn, who had to reformat her hard drive once and was amazed at how much better it ran post-trojan

Margarita Skies · Jan 31, 2011

Maryn said:
Well, if a gigantic external hard drive is not on the table, it's not on the table. So be it, right?

What our budget-conscious kids (adults) do is burn stuff to CD or DVD, or park it online (duplicating the back-up if it's important), then delete it from their hard drives, freeing up that space. Video still eats up a lot of space, but if that's what you want to do with your computer, then you just have to offload all other space-eaters.

I'm no expert, but some of the tips here would no doubt serve you well to take advantage of every bit of storage your computer has.

Maryn, who had to reformat her hard drive once and was amazed at how much better it ran post-trojan

I don't know if I've asked this before, but is it true that formatting a hard drive many times will eventually cause it to fail? I heard that from a computer technician and that's why I haven't formatted my hard drive in a year, having the recovery discs and the program to create them.

benbradley · Jan 31, 2011

alleycat said:
Videos take a lot of ~~memory~~ Hard Disk space.

Yeah, just get a big external drive. There's relatively cheap these days.

And it's not exact, but just multiple by 1000 each time to go from KBs to MBs to GBs.

To expand this out, a GB is ONE MILLION KB's, so deleting a few programs and things might only get you a couple seconds worth of space for video.

And just a short correction of alleycat's statement - hard disk space is technically memory, but "memory" more often means the RAM (Random Access Memory, but don't worry about these acronyms expanded out, they don't correctly distinguish between RAM and ROM and can be confusing), the main chip memory that plugs into the motherboard and holds the running programs and data the computer is operating on, and whose contents disappear when the computer loses power. I've seen for decades where people think they need to 'upgrade' and they don't know the difference, or which one they need. If you want to save all these videos, you need more disk space, either an external hard drive to same some of them, or a larger internal hard drive.

Gawd, I didn't mean to go into all of that...

CaoPaux · Jan 31, 2011

Heh. I just got a "out of vitual memory" message on my doddering work computer. Flipping too fast between CAD files, I expect.

alleycat · Jan 31, 2011

benbradley said:
To expand this out, a GB is ONE MILLION KB's, so deleting a few programs and things might only get you a couple seconds worth of space for video.

And just a short correction of alleycat's statement - hard disk space is technically memory, but "memory" more often means the RAM (Random Access Memory, but don't worry about these acronyms expanded out, they don't correctly distinguish between RAM and ROM and can be confusing), the main chip memory that plugs into the motherboard and holds the running programs and data the computer is operating on, and whose contents disappear when the computer loses power. I've seen for decades where people think they need to 'upgrade' and they don't know the difference, or which one they need. If you want to save all these videos, you need more disk space, either an external hard drive to same some of them, or a larger internal hard drive.

Gawd, I didn't mean to go into all of that...

. . .

Lhun · Jan 31, 2011

Maryn said:
What our budget-conscious kids (adults) do is burn stuff to CD or DVD, or park it online (duplicating the back-up if it's important), then delete it from their hard drives, freeing up that space. Video still eats up a lot of space, but if that's what you want to do with your computer, then you just have to offload all other space-eaters.

Hard drive space is significantly cheaper per GB than DVDs (let alone CDs).

Deleted member 42 · Jan 31, 2011

Lhun said:
Hard drive space is significantly cheaper per GB than DVDs (let alone CDs).

Which is just ducky if you've got disposable income that you measure in 100.00 units.

Lots of users--especially kids--don't.

Lhun · Jan 31, 2011

Medievalist said:
Which is just ducky if you've got disposable income that you measure in 100.00 units.

An internal 500GB HDD is below 40 bucks. (as long as it's not Apple. But if you don't have loads of cash to blow, going with Apple was a bad choice in the first place)
For about 50, you get an external 500GB USB drive or an internal 1TB.

Deleted member 42 · Jan 31, 2011

Lhun said:
An internal 500GB HDD is below 40 bucks. (as long as it's not Apple. But if you don't have loads of cash to blow, going with Apple was a bad choice in the first place)
For about 50, you get an external 500GB USB drive or an internal 1TB.

You're really not reading well, are you?

1. I don't have a problem. The user --amlptj--who does, isn't using a Mac.

2. I have never had a problem with Apple--and I've got Apples running with original hardware from 1993. This isn't about me, though, it's about helping amlptj. At least for most of the people in this thread.

3. I can build a hard drive if you've got a clean room. Most users can't. Teens typically don't have spare cash; you will have noted Maryn, whose teens use DVDs for backup, pointed out the cash-flow problem.

4. Most users--especially teens--can't install their own internal hard drive.

5. I'm really really tired of geek wanna-bes attempting to sneer at basic users, and naive users.

Don't do it here. I'm done with it.

Jamesaritchie · Jan 31, 2011

I think part of the point here is that, in the very short run, an external hard drive is cheaper than DVDs. You can buy an external hard drive at our local WalMart for sixty bucks. I caught one on sale a few months back for thirty-nine bucks.

Burn that many DVDs, and odds are high that you're trash your DVD you drive before very long at all, and then the external hard drive is going to look like an even better bargain.

Deleted member 42 · Jan 31, 2011

Jamesaritchie said:
I think part of the point here is that, in the very short run, an external hard drive is cheaper than DVDs. You can buy an external hard drive at our local WalMart for sixty bucks. I caught one on sale a few months back for thirty-nine bucks.

You know why it was that cheap? Because it was a crappy drive.

We're talking about digital video.
We're talking about someone shooting lots of video.
We're talking about a naive user shooting lots of video.
Now, yes, you can buy a honking big drive, three, four, six, even ten TBs. If you've got the cash.
Of course, that drive isn't going to be optimized for video, or even for being a video backup drive. Video playback requires pretty demanding seek-read-play response.
So there's a high probability of it going bellyup.
There's a reason that even now in non-linear editing--which is the business where I learned about drives and backup because I was performing installs, training, and setting up redundant RAIDs--you use DVDs for daily backup.
Sure you have multiple terabyte drives; that means when your drive dies, which if ordinary mortals can afford the drive, is almost destined to happen--you lose all your video at once.

Jamesaritchie said:
Burn that many DVDs, and odds are high that you're trash your DVD you drive before very long at all, and then the external hard drive is going to look like an even better bargain.

This is not really very good advice James. It's really not.

blacbird · Jan 31, 2011

Medievalist said:
You know why it was that cheap? Because it was a crappy drive.

Over the years, I've found that external hard drives have been by far the least reliable storage devices. Every one I've ever purchased (at least four, that I recall) has failed, terminally, with in about a year.

Now, I don't save videos or music or games, all of which devour storage space the way a pride of lions devours a freshly killed gazelle. But even for the simple, small stuff, like text files and spreadsheets, they died, with all kinds of unused storage space on them.

I've never, as in NEVER EVER, had a flash drive do that. Now, you're not going to get the space on a flash drive that you do on an external hard drive, not yet at least. But the main problem addressed in the OP is simply the understanding that videos take hellacious quantities of digital storage space.

Deleted member 42 · Jan 31, 2011

blacbird said:
But the main problem addressed in the OP is simply the understanding that videos take hellacious quantities of digital storage space.

They really do.

Most cameras (even web cams) will give you a chart in the docs / specs listing quality or resolution of the video, duration of the video, and how much space it takes on a drive.

That said, and assuming you have permission, why do you need video? Why not take notes in class--possibly with a LiveScribe pen?

Ran out of space.

amlptj

Speling & grammer murderer, Sorrie!

alleycat

Still around

Cyia

Rewriting My Destiny

Deleted member 42

alleycat

Still around

Margarita Skies

BradCarsten

practical experience, FTW

Maryn

I Tried

Deleted member 42

whacko

Keeping up with the class

Deleted member 42

Margarita Skies

Maryn

I Tried

Margarita Skies

benbradley

It's a doggy dog world

CaoPaux

Mostly Harmless

alleycat

Still around

Lhun

New kid, be gentle!

Deleted member 42

Lhun

New kid, be gentle!

Deleted member 42

Jamesaritchie

Deleted member 42

blacbird

Deleted member 42