WHAT IS A SOLID-STATE DRIVE? In order to get a handle on what a Solid-State Drive is, we need to sort of understand what the term “solid state” means. In short, when we say “solid state,” we mean electronic circuitry that is built entirely of semiconductors. It may help to understand what NOT “solid state” would be. Older televisions and […]
Should You Buy a Solid-State Drive?
To Defrag or Not To Defrag??
It doesn’t seem like very long ago that I was recommending to folks that they defragment their hard drives once a month. As with all progress, what was once Best Practices is now either no longer necessary, or downright inappropriate. When hard drives were 40GB and smaller, defragmentation was necessary to make sure all your files were together and not […]
Bits and Bytes: the Open and Shut Case of Data Terminology
The term BYTE in some form is probably the tech term you will hear most often, and without even realizing it, because it won’t always be used in it’s solo form or in its full form. Let me tell you first why this can get confusing: Because the very same words that describe how BIG something is also describes how […]
RAM–What “Ewe” Need to Know (pun warning came too late)
what it is–in real people’s terms RAM stands for for Random Access Memory. It’s not storage, and it’s not the hard drive. It’s the thing your computer uses to keep track of stuff it’s working on right now or very recently. Your computer can’t start without it; if you don’t have RAM installed, it simply won’t complete the startup process. […]