Buy an external hard drive or more ram?

  • Thread starter Thread starter donald
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donald

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Howdy all.

I have a Dell Desktop with 512mb of Ram/120 gig hard drive. I run Cubase Sx3 with the usual Vst plug-ins. B4, Waves stuff, Virtual Guitarist, & some freebies... But I just bought a nice, but huge, Bosendorfer piano sample. And when I start to install into Kontakt. It informs me "virtual memory running low." etc.

It will eventually install... but everything starts running VERY slow and it gets annoying. Should I be buying an external 120/256 gig hard drive to fix this... or would it be in my best interest to upgrade the ram to a gig or something like that. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for your opinions/ suggestions. Don

p.s. just a side note... I also do web design, so yes, I do have other things on the pc, such as Dreamweaver, Flash, and a host of other web design tools Thanks again.
 
More RAM !

Virtual memory is only used when you start running low on actual RAM.

(Virtual memory works by "paging out" some data to the hard disk. When that data is required, something called a "page fault" occurs, and the system knows that it need to load data from the hard disk, or "virtual memory".)


Nedless to say, that if you had more RAM, then you're virtual memory wouldn't be used as much, and you won't get those warning messages anymore.


Tristan
 
It sounds as though your set-up is not optimal.

If you are running the machine 'as is' - i.e. you haven't changed the set-up since you got the machine from Dell, you are probably running many useless background applications.

Although I haven't seen any evidence of it myself (I haven't played with a new Dell in years) I have heard that Dell bring down the cost of their machines by filling people's computers with adware.

Try scanning your machine with 'ad aware':
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

Have a look in Task Manager and see what application is eating your RAM and report back if you are unsure as to whether it might be useful or not.

You shoudn't really need more than 512k (although it can help to have a GB or more).
Personally I would get the external HDD first. There is nothing worse than a hard drive failure killing all your data.

An external HDD makes backups quick and easy to do.

Have a look around this site to find out how to tweak your system for optimal performance:
http://www.techreviewer.com/viewpage.cfm/pi/9
 
Thanks for the help... of course I did a task check & MS Bridge, my dsl hookup, is running high, & of course IEXPLORER, synchost etc... are running. I actually have cleared the heard drive on this dell and reinstalled what I needed. I think maybe I just need to get some stuff off of it.
i.e. Dreamweaver templates, flash movies...

Because actually I back up all recording sessions on DVD. And then imediately remove it from the hard drive. I suppose I'll look at getting the external & put all the music stuff on one the web/games on the other. Thanks
 
RAM. Get it to at least 1GB. What virtual memory does is take the hard drive and use it as a temporary solution to your lack of physical ram. Unfortunately, since hard drives use disks as their form of storage, and a needle has to physically move back and forth on this disk, it'll be a ton slower than using sticks of ram. Physical memory (the little sticks in there) use a MUCH faster form of holding information, but it's difficult to hold large amounts of data on them due to technological and physical limitations. Hence why RAM has a higher price to quantity ratio. In short, virtual memory is to be used only in extreme situations.
 
Definitely the RAM.

You could also check out this website. They have some good tips on optimizing your PC for audio stuff, if you haven't done this already. :)
 
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Buy another 512mb of RAM. You can adjust your virtual memory settings and get rid of that error, but it is not really an ideal solution. Virtual Memory is slower than acutal RAM, because it has to read and write huge blocks to the hard drive. Anyway, if you want a quick fix,
- Right click on your My Computer Icon
- Click the 'Advanced' tab
The first section under advanced is Peformance
- click the 'Settings' button.
A window pops up that says 'Performance Options'
-Click the 'Advanced' tab
The last section in this window says 'Virtual Memory'
-Click 'Change'
-Check the option for 'Custom Size'
- at the top, select whichever drive of yours that has the most free space, or is fastest
- for the 'Initial Size (MB)', enter 720
- for the 'Maximum Size (MB)', enter 1440
- click the 'Set' button.
- click 'OK'


It sounds harder than it is. That should at least stop the error, until you can get some more RAM.
 
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