RAM or Hard Drive?

Pthree

Good Morning,

Following on from yesterdays thread here (if you're at all interested) https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4002663

I am slightly confused about which is better more RAM or larger hard drive?

I think I have narrowned down my options to between these three

http://www.johnlewis.com/231577584/Product.aspx

http://www.johnlewis.com/231652871/Product.aspx

http://www.johnlewis.com/231577585/Product.aspx

All Toshiba Satellites (as I have been assured they have great sound which is important to me, is this correct?) and on the surface seems to be very little difference in the specs for the difference in price which again is small.

As I do tend to store music and piccies (I have no idea how many but its my hobby so I take quite a lot) on my laptop should I go for more GB than RAM? or as high as I can in both, is 4MB enough?

At the moment I am tempted by the one at £399 as it has 6MB and 640GB but the processor is not the newest, will I notice this (my last laptop was Intel i3 and pretty darn nifty)

Or can someone suggest something I am missing out on?

Any suggestions would be much appreciated, I need to buy it today so I dont have to come into work at the weekend!!

Cheers
P3

penrhyn

The hard disk is responsible for storing data and programmes. Go for the largest, and don't forget to buy an external HDD to back up your data.

If you are not going to get into gaming then anything above 4Gb of RAM is a luxury.

I doubt whether any laptop produces more than a tinny sound, suggest you check them out first.

jon142

RAM always. HDD upgrade will do next to nothing for performance.

BlueC

penrhyn wrote: »

If you are not going to get into gaming then anything above 4Gb of RAM is a luxury.

Nonsense. RAM is extremely useful for applications such as Photoshop, Illustrator, or video/media editing packages - some of these will happily eat up 32Gb+ of RAM. It is also just generally good for running multiple programs at the same time.

Games would benefit more from better GPU and CPU, although more RAM is always good.

HDD size won't make a jot of difference to performance.

clangnuts

I've got a Toshiba Satellite, and I've got to say the sound is OK, but nothing special.

Ainsley1

I have joined this discussion late but, if I were you I would be asking myself a few questions. Especially as you do not say how important your hobby is! Only you can answer.

1 Why a laptop, do you really want portability? If so then Yes. Otherwise you will possibly do better with a desktop. Often more for your money, easier to expand in future if you run out of drive space or fix if hardware fault much easier to work with owing to full size keyboard and mouse (unless you add to the laptop) and you would probably want a good big video monitor to see/edit your pictures on so that would be extra to laptop anyway. Similar comments for music [external speakers] needed.

2 Performance - RAM is key this will show up for you during editing of pictures if you do advances actions rather than just a bit of correction

3 Storage - HDD size is key. Perhaps work out how much space you might need over the next few years This depend upon how many photos you take and what quality (memory size) and how many. Bear in mind programs and data sizes will no doubt get bigger as time passes.

4 Consider (especially if desktop) go for your 4GB RAM (probably more might be better for your needs - see above post) and a smaller disk size which can be added to later (internally on desktop or externally on laptop [usually, as it's not as easy to upgrade inside the smaller case].

5 If you are keen and photos etc, are important to you and you do not want to lose them (by either losing the laptop or a PC failure) you might ask yourself if its more important to have a backup facility rather than a bigger hard drive within your budget. This can be by DVD (can be a pain as you will most likely backup more than can fit of a disk or two and is more difficult to automate), second hard drive (similar size to first and you can back up system to aid failure recovery and a couple of data copies) or via an on line service that you probably have to pay for. As mentioned in above post I would go for the external hard drive - with newer pictures burnt to DVD every year or two and then all after 5 years for a really resilient backup - though you might think all this backup action overkill, till you lose them.

6 Ensure you have a good virus protection program installed. - again risk reduction.

Hope these question help you to decide!

victor2

For the performance, I'd go for one of the Core i3 models. Only £20 extra for the 6GB one, so might as well go for that, although you can always upgrade the memory later if you choose the 4GB model, but depending what free slots it has, that could cost you more.
Presumably you'll have some sort of additional external storage device for data as well as the internal 500GB on these two models. A USB external drive will be very slow in comparison to an internal one, so only consider it for backups and not frequent use - or go for a network connected storage device.
As already said, it's a laptop, so you won't get brilliant sound, but no reason why you can't connect an external amp and speakers.

gonzo127

RAM for increased performance - unless your looking at SSD hard drives then size does make a different to performance but at your price point a SSD is probably unrealistic in a laptop

on the flip side, ram is a very cheap and very easy upgrade, a hard drive upgrade can be a bit more traumatic as you have to reinstall your OS and programs (on a laptop) and then copy over all your data

Pthree

clangnuts wrote: »

I've got a Toshiba Satellite, and I've got to say the sound is OK, but nothing special.

I do have external speakers which I used to connect to my old laptop, but this is a faff as I tend to use it when listening to music so I have to be "wired up" as much as I loved my lost Samsung the sound was awful so thats why I added good sound to my "wish list" How have you found the Satelitte apart from that?

Ainsley1 wrote: »

I have joined this discussion late but, if I were you I would be asking myself a few questions. Especially as you do not say how important your hobby is! Only you can answer.

1 Why a laptop, do you really want portability? If so then Yes. Otherwise you will possibly do better with a desktop. Often more for your money, easier to expand in future if you run out of drive space or fix if hardware fault much easier to work with owing to full size keyboard and mouse (unless you add to the laptop) and you would probably want a good big video monitor to see/edit your pictures on so that would be extra to laptop anyway. Similar comments for music [external speakers] needed.

2 Performance - RAM is key this will show up for you during editing of pictures if you do advances actions rather than just a bit of correction

3 Storage - HDD size is key. Perhaps work out how much space you might need over the next few years This depend upon how many photos you take and what quality (memory size) and how many. Bear in mind programs and data sizes will no doubt get bigger as time passes.

4 Consider (especially if desktop) go for your 4GB RAM (probably more might be better for your needs - see above post) and a smaller disk size which can be added to later (internally on desktop or externally on laptop [usually, as it's not as easy to upgrade inside the smaller case].

5 If you are keen and photos etc, are important to you and you do not want to lose them (by either losing the laptop or a PC failure) you might ask yourself if its more important to have a backup facility rather than a bigger hard drive within your budget. This can be by DVD (can be a pain as you will most likely backup more than can fit of a disk or two and is more difficult to automate), second hard drive (similar size to first and you can back up system to aid failure recovery and a couple of data copies) or via an on line service that you probably have to pay for. As mentioned in above post I would go for the external hard drive - with newer pictures burnt to DVD every year or two and then all after 5 years for a really resilient backup - though you might think all this backup action overkill, till you lose them.

6 Ensure you have a good virus protection program installed. - again risk reduction.

Hope these question help you to decide!

Ooh lots of questions.... with a bit too much techy talk for my liking but I will do my best

1) Small one bed flat so I don't really have the room for a desktop, but portability isn't super important, but it’s nice to have the option providing I don’t go leaving it on the train again! I also have a connection lead "thingy" (the technical term I believe) that I have been told can connect my laptop to the TV although I as yet I haven’t felt the need to yet. I am also used to the smaller keyboard / screen now anyway.

2) I use Photoshop and a few other editing packages, so a bit more than a bit of cropping etc.

3) If only I had a crystal ball!! At present I seem to be taking around 200 pics a week but I'm only 12 months into taking it up, who knows I may get bored soon! I also have a bad habit of even keeping the crappy ones, I could be a bit more ruthless about this. Music wise I think I have around 5-800(ish) albums, these days I don’t add to it too often maybe an album a month at the most.

4) Ok

5) I have an external hard drive and actually do back up fairly often (had 1 laptop pack up and lost another in past 3 months and as yet haven’t seemed to have lost any data :T)

6) I use Kapersky.. Kaspersky ....Kaplinski....or something that sounds like that??

I’m not sure if I am up to upgrading anything but it would be good to know the option is there if needed (and providing I could get someone else to do it for me!!)


What is a network connected storage device? I am guessing the clue is in the name but just in case Are they expensive?

poppellerant

jon142 wrote: »

RAM always. HDD upgrade will do next to nothing for performance.

If you don't game, then 4gb is quite adequate for most people.

If you put a 4,200rpm harddrive and 7,200rpm harddrive in two idential laptops, I bet even the average user would tell you that the laptop with the 7,200rpm harddrive is more responsive.

Ainsley1

Pthree, sounds like your on the right track already.

The other sort of backup I was considering is often sold so that you can backup your data files over the internet to a host storage system. There are several and I cannot advise much more about them but you are probably OK with your external hard drive. I would just add copying your photos etc. to a DVD(s) (just in case something happens affecting the laptop and external drive at the same time), but infrequently....but then I'm probably paranoid about losing data. Once it's gone. it's gone....usually.