Save occasionally used applications to flash drive?

My powerbook is slow because i'm using about 95% of the memory.. I rarely use most of the programs which take up the most space (iDVD, Adobe Premiere, iMovie HD, DVD Studio pro, Final Cut pro HD, Poser 5.0, Flash MX, Director MX, Fireworks MX, Dreamweaver 8, Freehand MX........).

Could I save these onto a flash drive or something so that I can easily access it when, say, I need to edit a movie (not too often), but it's not there, all the time, taking up so much space? It would be for my own personal use.

When I hear memory, I think RAM. I assume you are referring to a lack of hard drive space?

Yes, you could transfer some programs over to a flash drive to free up some space.

Yes, that's it.. I always mix up the 2.

But say I transfer it to a flash drive..then I delete it to clear up space. then when I pop the flash back in, and I click the app, won't i need to download it again? and need all the keys and everything?

If you have legal software there should be no problems.

Well, for instance, I have this app. called iFlash. When I downloaded it (and paid), I don't remember getting a key.. I think it was just that you paid for access to download. I don't have a key, but I am the legal owner of it and I paid.. don't have the emails or anything.

And I have Garagesale, which I paid for, and I have the email and the key, but can't you enter that in only once? Don't they keep track? otherwise, couldn't you just give the key to a friend? can't you use it only once?

Giving a software licence to a friend is illegal because then you are participating in pirating the software.

I hope you know that your hard drive has nothing to do with your performance, therefore your computer shouldn't be running slow because you're using up 95% of your hard drive space.

If you still want to clean up some space I would be willing to bet your actual saved files (movies, music, photos etc) are taking up as much or more space than a few apps you don't use (like the one's you legally downloaded, for example).

Yeah... how would you be able to do it if it were illegal. That's my point.


What does cause your computer to clog up then, if it's not used up memory? My "startup disc" is heavily loaded.. whatever that means.

Have you read the forum rules, by any chance?

4- Illegal Activity:
We choose to follow United States law in regard to what is permissible to be discussed here. Therefore discussion of illegal file sharing, cracked programs, requests for serial numbers, and any other breaches of copyright or other illegal activity are not allowed in these forums.

This also includes discussion of breaking the terms of software or hardware EULAs.

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dragging and dropping to a flash drive will require no keys or whatever until you attempt to use/install it on a new computer.

anyway, what you want to do will work.

also, yes a full hard drive will a) slow up your computer a bit because it has to go through so much stuff and swap information to and from ram and b) cause pre-mature hard drive failure

-chris

betl said:

Well, for instance, I have this app. called iFlash. When I downloaded it (and paid), I don't remember getting a key.. I think it was just that you paid for access to download. I don't have a key, but I am the legal owner of it and I paid.. don't have the emails or anything.

And I have Garagesale, which I paid for, and I have the email and the key, but can't you enter that in only once? Don't they keep track? otherwise, couldn't you just give the key to a friend? can't you use it only once?

Click to expand...

This is what I said. I didn't do anything illegal, and I'm not asking for instructions on how to do anything illegal.

First you should try and deleting any files and applications you don't use often to free up some hard drive space.

OK, but my point for using the flash drive would be so that I can clear the application from my computer so that I can clear up space.. So, I would want to load it onto a flash drive, delete it from my computer, and then one day, load it onto my computer when I need to edit a movie or something..

But, I would like to load it onto my computer without having to spend 30 minutes downloading it or whatever.. I can do that by just downloading it from the website.

betl said:

This is what I said. I didn't do anything illegal, and I'm not asking for instructions on how to do anything illegal.

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betl said:

Yes, that's it.. I always mix up the 2.

But say I transfer it to a flash drive..then I delete it to clear up space. then when I pop the flash back in, and I click the app, won't i need to download it again? and need all the keys and everything?

Click to expand...

I dunno, this sounds like something a bit je ne sais quoi...

Anyway, the best suggestion was to free space by taking the files away.

Yeah, that's what my point for doing this is... I just don't want to lose it, that's why I would load it onto a flash drive, instead of just deleting it.

eon. said:

I hope you know that your hard drive has nothing to do with your performance, therefore your computer shouldn't be running slow because you're using up 95% of your hard drive space.

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Actually, because of virtual memory and swap files and all that jazz, a full hard-drive will decrease performance (infact if you get to 100%, which I've managed a few times, the system is practically unusable). Also reading/writing to the centre of the disk (as you do when you start to fill your HDD) is slower than the outer edges because the disk has to spin more to cover the same physical distance on the disk.

They say a good guide is to keep 10% of your disk free, but it really depends on the capacity of the disk, how many programs you're running, and how big those apps are. Keeping 50% free would be ideal, but is obviously very wasteful.

eon. said:

I hope you know that your hard drive has nothing to do with your performance, therefore your computer shouldn't be running slow because you're using up 95% of your hard drive space.

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This is NOT true. A hard drive, especially the boot drive, should not be filled beyond 80% capacity. This allows "scratch disk" space for memory-intensive programs (Photoshop, iMovie, etc). It also makes reading and writing to the hard drive faster, because there is more available room, so files aren't being divided into lots of tiny pieces and scattered across the hard drive.

Here's an even better Apple battery webpage:

http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html

I admit I'm not the most tech-literate kid in the bunch (although, I've been on computers since I was 5), so this may sound very stupid, but here I go..

Ok, my powerbook makes this noise every now and then, and it sounds like a spinning disc scraping against concrete.. it's loud enough to turn heads in a library.. could this possibly be the actual disc spinning? That can't be good.. Ever heard of that before?

Could it be?