I was lookin around on NeoGaf and saw a thread about it. They all pretty much agreed that there's no reason not to run 64-bit anymore. I already know that it removes the ram limit but, does it affect anything else? Someone mentioned things would be faster overall. Is this true?

I'd go ahead and just install 64-bit right now but I need an external HDD to move about 95gb's worth of stuff.....putting it all onto 10 DVD's would be a pain, especially since I have a few rare files that are over 5gb's. I'm only hesistant to buy an external HDD since that money can also be used to replace this horrid 17" CRT monitor =/

I plan on spending about $80-100'ish on a 320-500gb external HDD. How reliable would you guys say they are? As much as I'd love to store mass amounts of stuff on one to free up space, I've read a few horror stories about people losing all their data. I think I also read somewhere that the ones that connect through USB are abit more unstable. I even thought about getting 2 cheap external HDD's incase one decides to go dead.

Am I being too paranoid about it?

^About 64-bit Windows: yes, it's going to be slightly faster overall by something on the order of 10%. The 64-bit applications will be faster on average, at least.

Talking of which: double and triple check the availability of all drivers for your hardware, as it takes specific 64-bit versions of them.

As for the lifetime of HDDs: it depends on the kind of use you make of them. If you just use them for the occasional backup, they are quite safe over the timespan of several years. If you keep them spinning all day long, not really. I went through 2 (150 and then 350 GB) HDDs connected to my file server last year, but that's because I had downloads and reads from my apache server going on almost 24/7.

External HDDs can be more prone to failure in the measure in which they're overheating: small external cases with tiny fans are again not suited to a 24/7 usage. But if it is a daily 10-mins backup process or your occasional copying of movies/photos/documents you want to lug around, then there's no reason to suppose their life to be shorter than HDDs mounted in your desktop computer.

wtf man? 80 - 100 just for 500 gig? I bought a hard drive last week for 87 dollars including tax and everything that was pretty damn fast and was a whole terabyte

You can always by an IDE to USB adapter for $13 and use your existing hard drive as your external hard drive. That would save you the step of copying files, and you will still have a working installation of Windows if things go badly for you. I am not sure what type of interface your existing drive has, but they make adapters for all of them.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=ide+to+usb+adapter&x=0&y=0

The biggest benefit of 64 bit is the 4 GB RAM bottleneck is removed. Previously if you had 4 GB of Ram and a decent video card, your computer would only read about 3.25 GB.

With 64 bit that limit is removed and go up to something like 16 GB for Home and 198 GB for Professional.

Granted there still isn't much out there that really utilizes that much ram, so for todays games and applications, going from 32-64 bit won't make a huge difference.

HOWEVER, you would be a complete fool to buy a new computer with a 32 bit operating system. It's not truly worth it to upgrade your current computer from 32-64 bit right now since there really isn't much use for it, but 64 bit is slowly becoming the standard, so you want your new computer prepared for it (heck there is no price difference between 32 and 64 bit, Windows 7 contains both in the same package).


Short version: It's not worth it to buy a 64 bit windows to replace your current computer, but if you so happen to get a new computer, definitely go 64 bit.

Edit: I should also say, If you really like Windows 7 over your current OS, 64 bit would just be an added bonus for upgrading. But don't go from Vista 32 or xp 32 to vista 64.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/32-bit-and-64-bit-Windows-frequently-asked-questions

There's no point in getting a 32-bit OS, since 64-bit is the future, so you might as well upgrade to it if you have the opportunity.

Some applications will actually see a decrease in performance, because 32-bit variables will still use 64 bits of address space. I think +10% on average is overstating it. Maybe +5% for designed-for-64-bit apps, no change on most apps and -5% on a very few apps that suffer the above problem.

Also make sure your drivers work fully in 64-bit. They should by now, but there are a few obscure devices that have problems.

Well I guess I'll be switching over to 64-bit soon. I honestly prefer win XP because of how simple and plain it is, but I'm getting somewhat close to hitting the 2gb limit in a music production program that I use often so I kinda need the ram limit removed.

 Is there a good place to get them at? I always shop at Newegg.com They actually have a sale that ends today on a Western Digital HDD - $70 (free shipping) for 640gb. I actually only would want about 320-500gb's though, whatever's cheaper.....I just can't imagine myself relying heavily on one. If I was to lose all the stuff that I plan on putting on it, I'd be screwed over pretty bad. I'll probably just put enough so that I at least have a decent amount of space on my pc's HDD - I'm down to 25gb (out of 283gb).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284

Western Digital 1tb drive for $94 and free shipping or that smaller one is good too.