Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

I remember paying over $200 for a 20Meg years and years ago.

Earnest Botello Loc: Hockley, Texas

I remember when it was $200 a meg for of ram.

Dat Quach Loc: California

Thanks Earnest. After building my last PC seven years ago, I did not open the manual and truthfully, I do not know where it is.

I am wandering off the main topic and I do apologize for that. My next issues are 1) I installed 32 MB RAM (DDR3) but the computer recognizes only 16, and 2) after cloning the failing 1 TB HDD onto a new 2 TB HDD, the Windows Explorer recognizes the new HDD as only 1 TB although the BIOS sees 2TB. My computer has i7 processor, runs on Windows 10 pro, 64 bits. The issues are not important as long as the computer runs smoothly but I feel “cheated”. 😁 Any suggestions/remedies to fix them are appreciated very much.

It is very reassuring to have knowledgeable members such as you, TriX and many others helping out, not only in photography but also computer hardwares. It’s amazing.

Now, my roof and piping leak, any volunteers? ☺️J/K.

Earnest Botello Loc: Hockley, Texas

Cloning does exactly what it says, it clones the hard drive, 1 tb to 1tb. Usually a cloning program will ask if you want to use the whole drive and format it accordingly, you didn't. There is a fix, you go to control panel, administrative tools, disk management, your drives will come up. You will see your C: in there you will see your partition, click on the used partition and slide all the way to the right to expand it fully.
The board uses DDR3 1066 spd memory, 32 gigs max. I hope you are good with computers, good luck.

Dat Quach Loc: California

Thanks for the HDD fix, much appreciated. Will apply the fix and research on the 16/32 MB DDR3 issue. My computer skill has become hopelessly rusty.

Edit: Done, hooray 😃 ! Actually, there is no slide in Disk Management. I rightclicked the unallocated 1tb partition of the new HDD and made it a new simple drive, then followed pretty straightforward on-screen step-by-step instructions (e.g., chose a letter and volume name for the new drive). The computer formatted the new drive and voilà!

Thanks Earnest!

larryzplace Loc: Elk Grove Village Illinois

If you are at all handy do it yourself... The cable costs about 15 or 20 bucks... The ssd should be about 130... Takes different times based on the amount of data on your current drive... Check to see if the drive lets you use a free version of Acronis... Youtube is your friend and there are a number of guys demonstrating the procedure... And yes it is like night and day the performance you get with the new drive...

Earnest Botello Loc: Hockley, Texas

Dat, the question is did you make the whole drive into one drive or did you create a new partition and make it into two drives? If you are happy with it, it doesn't matter, but you should have been able to expand it
into one drive. As for the ram, have you tried re-seating the ram to make sure that it in there properly and make sure they are the same brand and speed, that's important.

Dat Quach Loc: California

Windows already created a 1TB partition, I only gave it a letter, name and let the Windows do a quick format. I am fine either way but it’s useful to know it’s possible just to expand the whole drive (C:\) into one 2TB drive instead of two separate C and F drives, 1TB each. I just didn’t know how (or it’s the path of the least resistance) but will try with a large SSD at a latter date, provided I could find one of the the right interfaces as TriX suggested.

Regarding the ram, they are all identical. I did re-seating and swapping their slots to no avail. I think there is something wrong with the circuitry, either on the rams or on the MB, I have no ways to pinpoint the problem(s). Love to find out though.

My computer is running okay with Lightroom 6, DXO Filmpack v.5, and a few Nikon softwares. Yesterday, I was able to stitch 15 Raw files of the Alaska mountain range with Denali peak without a hiccup. I am sure 32mb ram would speed up the process quite a bit.

Again, thanks Earnest. Best.

Earnest Botello Loc: Hockley, Texas

If you are happy, I am happy, Dat.

Kaib795 Loc: Maryland, USA

Yes, the SSD will improve speeds by 8x to 10x of what a basic HD runs at. My laptops use SSD's and boot in 8 seconds (w/ 16 Gb RAM) but I try not to put any junk on them, only what I need to accomplish this boot speed. Do note the a fore mentioning of the M.2 as it's very, very fast at 35x the speed of a normal HD AND faster ones are coming out. All computers will eventually use the M.2 drives (the size of a stick of gum). We built a gaming computer for my son and his M.2 makes a huge difference, though I made him start with a normal HD and for Christmas dropped the M.2 on him. But if your computer mother board does not support M.2, you cannot use it. The thing to note is that you want to look for this feature in your next computer so you have the option. If you are a maniac and want the fastest computer boot time, get two SSD's and run them in RAID 0 to boot in 3 seconds on a gaming laptop. Hard to believe but a programmer friend did just this to compile large programs and it saved him hours of time.

Earnest Botello Loc: Hockley, Texas

There are PCI-E adapter cards for both M.2 and 2.5 ssds that you install in a PCI-E slot and are very fast. Look on ebay for OWC adapters, they are reasonably price, native to the mobo, so no need for software, they
work fast. I bought one for my puker, installed a 2.5 inch 750 gig ssd on it and use it as my boot up drive.