Question for you computer geeks

OK, geeks, listen up.
Here is my current computer system right now.
Windows XP Pro
3.2MHz Pentium 4
2GB Memory
Hard drives as follows:
C: 120Gb SATA
D: / E: 400GB SATA in two partitions (250GB / 150GB)
F: DVD
G: DVD-R
H: / K: 250 GB IDE in 2 partitions (125GB each)
A: / I: / J: USB Floppy reader w/CF card
L: 160 GB SCSI
Most of my disks are almost full.

OK, I have 2 more sticks of memory that will get me to 4 GB.
I have a Windows XP Professional x64 disk.
I also have a new 1TB SATA hard drive.

What I would like to do is to use the new SATA disk as my C: drive and
install the XP x64 on it. Then I could dump the contents of many of
my drives onto the big drive.
I understand that the 64-bit OS makes better use of the 4GB of
memory. My question is will I be able to use my current apps on the
new OS?
Or is there a better way of going about it?
What would you do?

On Dec 26, 6:56*pm, Rita Ä Berkowitz ritaberk2O04 @aol.com wrote:
*I don't know why you want to put the OS on a
1TB drive when you can use a much smaller drive and save the big one for
your garbage and apps. *

That's normally what I try to do, but inevitably the C: drive gets
filled up anyway. I hate it when some programs automatically download
onto the C: drive without asking. I figured if I could clear out one
of my smaller drives I could use it for a scratch disk or something. I
suppose I could partition the big drive for that purpose, but I might
lose some performance. Plus, I hate having so many drive letters and
partitions. I'd rather have just one or two drives if possible.
Might make things easier on the power supply as well if I could lose a
few drives.

On Wed, 26 Dec 2007 15:44:38 -0800 (PST), Annika1980
wrote in
:

OK, geeks, listen up.
Here is my current computer system right now.
Windows XP Pro
3.2MHz Pentium 4
2GB Memory
Hard drives as follows:
C: 120Gb SATA
D: / E: 400GB SATA in two partitions (250GB / 150GB)
F: DVD
G: DVD-R
H: / K: 250 GB IDE in 2 partitions (125GB each)
A: / I: / J: USB Floppy reader w/CF card
L: 160 GB SCSI
Most of my disks are almost full.

OK, I have 2 more sticks of memory that will get me to 4 GB.
I have a Windows XP Professional x64 disk.
I also have a new 1TB SATA hard drive.

What I would like to do is to use the new SATA disk as my C: drive and
install the XP x64 on it. Then I could dump the contents of many of
my drives onto the big drive.
I understand that the 64-bit OS makes better use of the 4GB of
memory. My question is will I be able to use my current apps on the
new OS?
Or is there a better way of going about it?
What would you do?


I'd get a Sony BWU-200S Dual Layer Blu-Ray Writer ($600 at J&R), and
dump a good deal of that data to 50 GB Blu-Ray discs.

--
Best regards,
John Navas
Panasonic DMC-FZ8 (and several others)

"Annika1980" wrote:

I understand that the 64-bit OS makes better use of the 4GB of
memory.

I thought so too, but Dell will blithely sell you a 32-bit XP box with 4 or
8GB. The 32-bit XP limit is 2GB (or 3 GB) per either thread or process, and
it _should_ be possible for the OS to manage more memory than that directly
addressable by the CPU running a single app. (The OS could live in its own
1GB of physical memory and sets registers in the MMU when it switches apps.)
If this happened on a per-thread basis, then a single app could use as much
physical memory as the OS would give it.

Of course, this assumes that the app is written with the assumption that the
OS knows how to manage memory. But my understanding is that Photoshop (and
presumably Lightroom) do their own memory management in their own scratch
file.

My question is will I be able to use my current apps on the new OS?

This review (the first link google found) claims you can.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/08/...x64/index.html

Or is there a better way of going about it?
What would you do?

I'm planning on buying a new machine next spring, and I'll probably stick
with 32-bit XP.

My approach is going to be to have three fast disks: One for the OS + OS
page file, one for the Photoshop/Lightroom scratch file, and one for current
data. It might be slightly better to have four disks: OS, OS page file,
application scratch, and current data. But that gets silly.

By the way, I wish you wouldn't crosspost to aus.photo. It would reduce the
noise over here substantially.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

John Navas wrote:
On Wed, 26 Dec 2007 15:44:38 -0800 (PST), Annika1980
wrote in
:

OK, geeks, listen up.
Here is my current computer system right now.
Windows XP Pro
3.2MHz Pentium 4
2GB Memory
Hard drives as follows:
C: 120Gb SATA
D: / E: 400GB SATA in two partitions (250GB / 150GB)
F: DVD
G: DVD-R
H: / K: 250 GB IDE in 2 partitions (125GB each)
A: / I: / J: USB Floppy reader w/CF card
L: 160 GB SCSI
Most of my disks are almost full.

OK, I have 2 more sticks of memory that will get me to 4 GB.
I have a Windows XP Professional x64 disk.
I also have a new 1TB SATA hard drive.

What I would like to do is to use the new SATA disk as my C: drive and
install the XP x64 on it. Then I could dump the contents of many of
my drives onto the big drive.
I understand that the 64-bit OS makes better use of the 4GB of
memory. My question is will I be able to use my current apps on the
new OS?
Or is there a better way of going about it?
What would you do?


I'd get a Sony BWU-200S Dual Layer Blu-Ray Writer ($600 at J&R), and
dump a good deal of that data to 50 GB Blu-Ray discs.

So what's the Archive life of a Blu-Ray disk at the moment?
for that matter what's the Archive rating for any of the optical mediums
at the moment, even the highly valued "100 year" Kodak Archive quality
CD's are starting to fail after only a few years.
Use a HDD for archiving is the way to go, but follow the old adage that
if one copy is good, several will be better, In other words, put your
backups on at least 2 separate drives and store them in separate
locations if possible.

On Thu, 27 Dec 2007 09:39:20 +0900, "David J. Littleboy"
wrote in
:

"Annika1980" wrote:

I understand that the 64-bit OS makes better use of the 4GB of
memory.

It only does better with more than 4 GB.

I thought so too, but Dell will blithely sell you a 32-bit XP box with 4 or
8GB. The 32-bit XP limit is 2GB (or 3 GB) per either thread or process, and
it _should_ be possible for the OS to manage more memory than that directly
addressable by the CPU running a single app. (The OS could live in its own
1GB of physical memory and sets registers in the MMU when it switches apps.)
If this happened on a per-thread basis, then a single app could use as much
physical memory as the OS would give it.

The 2 GB limit is per process, not per thread.
Anything over 4 GB is wasted with 32-bit XP.
64-bit XP currently supports up to 128 GB,
and gives 32-bit apps up to 4 GB.

Of course, this assumes that the app is written with the assumption that the
OS knows how to manage memory. But my understanding is that Photoshop (and
presumably Lightroom) do their own memory management in their own scratch
file.

Correct.

I'm planning on buying a new machine next spring, and I'll probably stick
with 32-bit XP.

Why not Windows XP Professional x64 Edition??? Memory is cheap and
getting cheaper.

My approach is going to be to have three fast disks: One for the OS + OS
page file, one for the Photoshop/Lightroom scratch file, and one for current
data. It might be slightly better to have four disks: OS, OS page file,
application scratch, and current data. But that gets silly.

I suggest: (1) OS, (2) page + scratch, (3) data.

--
Best regards,
John Navas
Panasonic DMC-FZ8 (and several others)

On Thu, 27 Dec 2007 11:40:21 +1100, El Barto
wrote in :

John Navas wrote:

I'd get a Sony BWU-200S Dual Layer Blu-Ray Writer ($600 at J&R), and
dump a good deal of that data to 50 GB Blu-Ray discs.

So what's the Archive life of a Blu-Ray disk at the moment?
for that matter what's the Archive rating for any of the optical mediums
at the moment,

50 years or more.

even the highly valued "100 year" Kodak Archive quality
CD's are starting to fail after only a few years.

I've seen no credible evidence of high-grade optical discs failing when
they've been stored properly. I've yet to have a problem reading any of
my oldest CD-R discs.

Use a HDD for archiving is the way to go, but follow the old adage that
if one copy is good, several will be better, In other words, put your
backups on at least 2 separate drives and store them in separate
locations if possible.

HDD has much shorter life than any high-quality optical media, on the
order of only 5 years.

--
Best regards,
John Navas
Panasonic DMC-FZ8 (and several others)

On Wed, 26 Dec 2007 19:41:25 -0500, Rita Ä Berkowitz ritaberk2O04
@aol.com wrote in :

John Navas wrote:

I'd get a Sony BWU-200S Dual Layer Blu-Ray Writer ($600 at J&R), and
dump a good deal of that data to 50 GB Blu-Ray discs.

And you'd be making a hell of a lot of expensive coasters. Only an idiot
would recommend that ****ty of an optical solution.

You've either got an axe to grind or you've never actually used it.
Which is it?

--
Best regards,
John Navas
Panasonic DMC-FZ8 (and several others)

"Annika1980" wrote in message
...
OK, geeks, listen up.
Here is my current computer system right now.
Windows XP Pro
3.2MHz Pentium 4
2GB Memory
Hard drives as follows:
C: 120Gb SATA
D: / E: 400GB SATA in two partitions (250GB / 150GB)
F: DVD
G: DVD-R
H: / K: 250 GB IDE in 2 partitions (125GB each)
A: / I: / J: USB Floppy reader w/CF card
L: 160 GB SCSI
Most of my disks are almost full.

OK, I have 2 more sticks of memory that will get me to 4 GB.
I have a Windows XP Professional x64 disk.
I also have a new 1TB SATA hard drive.

What I would like to do is to use the new SATA disk as my C: drive and
install the XP x64 on it. Then I could dump the contents of many of
my drives onto the big drive.
I understand that the 64-bit OS makes better use of the 4GB of
memory. My question is will I be able to use my current apps on the
new OS?
Or is there a better way of going about it?
What would you do?



before going to x64 check out your hardware compatibility as XP 64 still
have some major issues with peripheral hardware. Also look here for software
compatibility (
http://www.neowin.net/forum/lofivers...p/t330290.html )
personally I would stick with Pro. The speed differences you might see by
going the x64 rout will probably be downplayed by software and hardware
incompatibility issues :-)

With your setup I would be looking at making the SCSI drive the OS partition
and then dumping all your other **** on the 1Tb drive in a couple of
partitions, then turn the 400 into a scratch drive (as it is probably the
fastest drive next to the SCSI and 1Tb drive, and being newer than the 120
SATA) and turning the old IDE drive into an external drive cases are as
cheap as chips now days)
might do to just ad an extra gig of ram as that's all XP will be able to
utilise as it has a practical limit of 3.1 gig.
--
"Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color."
Don Hirschberg

On Wed, 26 Dec 2007 15:44:38 -0800, Annika1980 wrote:

OK, geeks, listen up.
Here is my current computer system right now.
Windows XP Pro
3.2MHz Pentium 4
2GB Memory
Hard drives as follows:
C: 120Gb SATA
D: / E: 400GB SATA in two partitions (250GB / 150GB)
F: DVD
G: DVD-R
H: / K: 250 GB IDE in 2 partitions (125GB each)
A: / I: / J: USB Floppy reader w/CF card
L: 160 GB SCSI
Most of my disks are almost full.

OK, I have 2 more sticks of memory that will get me to 4 GB.
I have a Windows XP Professional x64 disk.
I also have a new 1TB SATA hard drive.

What I would like to do is to use the new SATA disk as my C: drive and
install the XP x64 on it. Then I could dump the contents of many of
my drives onto the big drive.

The Pentium 4 is not a 64-bit CPU - it won't work. However, you can
certainly copy files to the drive without it. BTW - MS 32 bit operating
systems will not make full use of 4gb memory. They need to map address
space etc. into the 4gb and you wind up with about 3gb that is actually
usable. Linux, on the other hand, can be configured to access 64gb with a
32 bit OS.

I understand that the 64-bit OS makes better use of the 4GB of
memory. My question is will I be able to use my current apps on the
new OS?
Or is there a better way of going about it?
What would you do?

If you want to run a 64 bit OS, you will have to get a 64 bit CPU - though
as of today there is little advantage to it.

BTW - if your system is not paging - kicking stuff out to swap space on
disk - when you over utilize memory, then adding more will not make any
difference.