32 bit Vista to 32 bit Win7, Clean or dirty?

So now I have another couple of questions, not related to the upgrade. In the past, I've kept all of my pictures, 75 Gb and growing, and all of my music, aproximately 7Gb, on my desktop's 160 Gb HD. I have an external 300 Gb HD that I backed everything up to. I created a "Master Picture" and "Master Music" folder on the external HD. I'm wondering about keeping my pictures and music on the external HD and directing Photoshop Elements and WM Player to those "Master" folders. This would free up my desktop's HD space, which I would think would allow my desktop to run faster. The only time the desktop would have to access the external HD is when I'm working with pictures or playing music.

Any thoughts? Pros/Cons? Suggestions?

returnofsid said:

So now I have another couple of questions, not related to the upgrade. In the past, I've kept all of my pictures, 75 Gb and growing, and all of my music, aproximately 7Gb, on my desktop's 160 Gb HD. I have an external 300 Gb HD that I backed everything up to. I created a "Master Picture" and "Master Music" folder on the external HD. I'm wondering about keeping my pictures and music on the external HD and directing Photoshop Elements and WM Player to those "Master" folders. This would free up my desktop's HD space, which I would think would allow my desktop to run faster. The only time the desktop would have to access the external HD is when I'm working with pictures or playing music.

Any thoughts? Pros/Cons? Suggestions?

Its aoways a good idea to have your data on a different drive just in case. Many factors come into play. Which HD is the faster? Is the external USB 2.0?

Having more space on the OS HD wont make you faster, but win 7 does grow pretty quickly. My win 7 ultimate 32bit has never needed to be wiped and re-installed and I install tons of apps. Its currently clocked in at about 30 gigs.

Ken

Hmmm, I have no idea which HD is faster...lol. Any tips on figuring that out? The external HD is USB 2.0 AND I have a firewire that I could use, but am currently just using a USB cable. I do also back up all of my photos to my Flickr Pro acct. Losing the music wouldn't bother me any, but I keep backups of ALL of my photos. I just figured that the desktop would run better without the extra 80some gigs of storage being filled up.

returnofsid said:

Hmmm, I have no idea which HD is faster...lol. Any tips on figuring that out? The external HD is USB 2.0 AND I have a firewire that I could use, but am currently just using a USB cable. I do also back up all of my photos to my Flickr Pro acct. Losing the music wouldn't bother me any, but I keep backups of ALL of my photos. I just figured that the desktop would run better without the extra 80some gigs of storage being filled up.

DO you have a shortcut to the internal HD on the desktop? I nust be missing something here. do you have a folder on your desktop that is 80+ gigs?

zigzag3143 said:

DO you have a shortcut to the internal HD on the desktop? I nust be missing something here. do you have a folder on your desktop that is 80+ gigs?

No, when I said "desktop," I meant desktop computer internal HD, as apposed to external HD. Should have made that more clear.

Basically, instead of putting all of my music and pictures on my internal HD, I've left them on my external HD, which is connected to my computer, through USB 2.0. When Adobe Photoshop needs to access pictures, it accesses them from the external HD. Same thing happens when my music is accessed.