Frequently Asked Questions - Computer Terminology
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Quick Reference
Bytes- Computers store information in tiny pieces called bytes. It's very hard to say and type out, "Three trillion, seven hundred and fifty billion, eight hundred eleven million, six hundred forty-seven thousand, two hundred and seventeen bytes." So we round and give things names in groups of one thousand.
Kilobyte: A thousand bytes- about the size of an email without pictures.
Megabyte: A thousand kilobytes- Most songs on your computer will be between three and five megabytes.
Gigabyte: A thousand megabytes- This is how we measure most hard drives. Very few objects are this big but a good music and photo collection can easily be tens of gigabytes.
Terabyte: A thousand gigabytes- A few hard drives out there are this size or larger and more and more will become available in the near future. You can store a LOT in a terabyte.
CPU- Another name for your computer's processor which is its "brain." CPU stands for Central Processing Unit and this is where your computer does most of its work.
GPU- Graphics Processing Unit. Another name for your graphics card and this is where everything you see on your screen is created and processed.
Hard Drives
Your Hard Drive (or hard disk) is where your information is stored. Every photo, document, video, or song that you keep on your computer takes up space on your hard drive. A hard drive's capacity is measured in Gigabytes or Terabytes. High definition video, high-megapixel cameras, and massive collections of MP3s can all eat up space on a hard drive quite quickly. Most MP3s are between three and five megabytes so you'll need quite a collection to use up a modern hard drive but newer digital cameras take up a fair amount of space. On many modern cameras, each time you snap a picture you'll use up at least 2 megabytes. It's easy for a holiday season or a trip across the country to eat up your hard drive. But don't worry! Right now, hard drives are getting incredibly cheap. You can get storage for a little over ten cents per gigabyte (that's fifty pictures for a penny) and those prices fall every few months. When it comes to a hard drive, get more than you think you'll need. Having too much storage is always better than not having enough. If you want to be extra careful, you can always have multiple hard drives set up in a redundant fashion- this is called RAID and we'll talk about that in another article. Most of our computers are available with more than one hard drive and some can hold as many as six. Bear in mind that if you have more hard drives, you'll need a bigger power supply and your PC may not be as quiet.
RAID- RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive (or Independent) Disks. RAID arrays can be used for several purposes and come in three general flavors. RAID1, RAID0, and RAID5/JBOD. Any of these require at least two disks and RAID 1 and 0 require that the drives be identical to each other. Again- more discs means more money, power, heat, and noise.
RAID 1 (Data protection) takes your two identical disks and writes the same data to both drives at the same time. This gives you a complete backup of your data so you lose nothing if one of your drives fails or is damaged. This does not protect you from viruses, trojans or any of the threats on the internet but hard drives are moving parts that generate heat and will eventually fail. If you have important things that cannot be replaced on your hard drive, this format is a good one for you because you are always protected in the event of a damaged drive. The downside is that you have to double the cost of your storage without having any more space. Your computer will only "see" one drive with storage space. So- Two 640GB drives will appear as one 640GB drive but if one dies, you lose no information and your computer keeps working.
RAID 0 (Extra speed) takes your two identical drives and puts "stripes" of data on each. The first benefit to RAID0 is in the speed- you get more of it. Because the computer is reading and writing from two locations, it can transfer that data much more quickly. The second benefit is that you actually get to use all the space of both drives. Your PC will only "see" one drive but it will see one very large drive that responds FAST. The downfall of RAID0 is that it is much less safe. Because data is striped between the two drives, if one fails you lose ALL the data on both. You've basically doubled your storage, gotten plenty of speed and doubled your chances of losing everything you're storing. Because of this, RAID0 is usually used with two smaller hard drives and things are stored for the long term on another hard drive to keep it backed up. With two 640GB drives, your computer will see a single drive of 1280GB but you've got twice the chance of losing that drive.
RAID 5 (Speed and protection) and its cousin JBOD (Just a Bunch of Drives) require at least three disks and are a something of a combination of RAID1 and 0. Your computer will see your three drives as one single drive with the space of two combined. Confused yet? Your three drives each have a partial backup of the other two as well as having data striped across them. This way, you get the speed benefit of RAID0 (though to a lesser extent) and the backup safety of RAID1. The biggest detriment is that you need to have at least three drives so your costs are clearly higher- power, noise, and the actual dollars needed to buy at least three drives. Three 640GB drives will show up as a single 1280GB drive that moves data faster than any one drive and has some backup so you can lose a drive and not lose any data.
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RAID- RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive (or Independent) Disks. RAID arrays can be used for several purposes and come in three general flavors. RAID1, RAID0, and RAID5/JBOD. Any of these require at least two disks and RAID 1 and 0 require that the drives be identical to each other. Again- more discs means more money, power, heat, and noise.
RAID 1 (Data protection) takes your two identical disks and writes the same data to both drives at the same time. This gives you a complete backup of your data so you lose nothing if one of your drives fails or is damaged. This does not protect you from viruses, trojans or any of the threats on the internet but hard drives are moving parts that generate heat and will eventually fail. If you have important things that cannot be replaced on your hard drive, this format is a good one for you because you are always protected in the event of a damaged drive. The downside is that you have to double the cost of your storage without having any more space. Your computer will only "see" one drive with storage space. So- Two 640GB drives will appear as one 640GB drive but if one dies, you lose no information and your computer keeps working.
RAID 0 (Extra speed) takes your two identical drives and puts "stripes" of data on each. The first benefit to RAID0 is in the speed- you get more of it. Because the computer is reading and writing from two locations, it can transfer that data much more quickly. The second benefit is that you actually get to use all the space of both drives. Your PC will only "see" one drive but it will see one very large drive that responds FAST. The downfall of RAID0 is that it is much less safe. Because data is striped between the two drives, if one fails you lose ALL the data on both. You've basically doubled your storage, gotten plenty of speed and doubled your chances of losing everything you're storing. Because of this, RAID0 is usually used with two smaller hard drives and things are stored for the long term on another hard drive to keep it backed up. With two 640GB drives, your computer will see a single drive of 1280GB but you've got twice the chance of losing that drive.
RAID 5 (Speed and protection) and its cousin JBOD (Just a Bunch of Drives) require at least three disks and are a something of a combination of RAID1 and 0. Your computer will see your three drives as one single drive with the space of two combined. Confused yet? Your three drives each have a partial backup of the other two as well as having data striped across them. This way, you get the speed benefit of RAID0 (though to a lesser extent) and the backup safety of RAID1. The biggest detriment is that you need to have at least three drives so your costs are clearly higher- power, noise, and the actual dollars needed to buy at least three drives. Three 640GB drives will show up as a single 1280GB drive that moves data faster than any one drive and has some backup so you can lose a drive and not lose any data.
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Processors
Your Processor (or CPU) is the brain of your computer and there are a lot of details to explore with these. There are two major companies that make processors and both offer a range from inexpensive and not terribly powerful to astonishingly expensive and blindingly fast. There is a lot to know about processors- you could spend years and still not know everything there is to know.
Gigahertz- Processors today are measured in gigahertz (how many billions of operations it can perform per second) and more is usually better. Think of any task you can do on a computer as using a shovel to fill a bucket from a sandbox. The more gigahertz your CPU is rated at, the faster it moves that shovel. Moving that shovel faster is almost always better. Some processors have bigger shovels than others while some have bigger sandboxes to take their sand from or a shorter distance to move the shovel. There is a huge amount of technical data behind this analogy and we'll go into that in another article. For most users, the Core2 series from Intel has a large, fast shovel and will more than suit your needs. They're available in a wide range of prices as well. Our budget systems come with AMD processors that have a very large shovel but aren't as fast to move them. Our high-end systems are available with the new Core i7 from Intel which has a monstrous shovel AND moves it quickly but these are leading-edge processors and have leading-edge costs to go with them because they require special memory and motherboards as well. As always, if you're not sure, please feel free to ask. We'll happily give you a recommendation based on what you want and need.
Cores- Many modern CPUs are also available with more than one core- literally two, three, or four (or up to eight!) processors on a single chip. Some programs are designed to use these extra brains quite well while others will leave some of the cores unused. Usually graphic and video-editing programs are designed to take advantage of multi-core processors very well. If you won't be using many of these programs, you may benefit more from two faster cores than from four slower ones. Since many programs can't use more than one core yet, having two very fast ones may be a bigger benefit to you than having more cores not being used. This is something based on your needs and what you expect to do. If you have questions, feel free to ask and we'll be happy to help you with a recommendation.
Table of Contents
Gigahertz- Processors today are measured in gigahertz (how many billions of operations it can perform per second) and more is usually better. Think of any task you can do on a computer as using a shovel to fill a bucket from a sandbox. The more gigahertz your CPU is rated at, the faster it moves that shovel. Moving that shovel faster is almost always better. Some processors have bigger shovels than others while some have bigger sandboxes to take their sand from or a shorter distance to move the shovel. There is a huge amount of technical data behind this analogy and we'll go into that in another article. For most users, the Core2 series from Intel has a large, fast shovel and will more than suit your needs. They're available in a wide range of prices as well. Our budget systems come with AMD processors that have a very large shovel but aren't as fast to move them. Our high-end systems are available with the new Core i7 from Intel which has a monstrous shovel AND moves it quickly but these are leading-edge processors and have leading-edge costs to go with them because they require special memory and motherboards as well. As always, if you're not sure, please feel free to ask. We'll happily give you a recommendation based on what you want and need.
Cores- Many modern CPUs are also available with more than one core- literally two, three, or four (or up to eight!) processors on a single chip. Some programs are designed to use these extra brains quite well while others will leave some of the cores unused. Usually graphic and video-editing programs are designed to take advantage of multi-core processors very well. If you won't be using many of these programs, you may benefit more from two faster cores than from four slower ones. Since many programs can't use more than one core yet, having two very fast ones may be a bigger benefit to you than having more cores not being used. This is something based on your needs and what you expect to do. If you have questions, feel free to ask and we'll be happy to help you with a recommendation.
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Memory (RAM)
The RAM (Random Access Memory) is where your computer stores the information you're using right now. If you have a lot of applications open- six internet windows, two chat windows, half a dozen e-mails, and some music playing then you're probably using a fair bit of RAM. If you tend to do one thing at a time, you aren't using nearly as much. We recommend at least two gigabytes of RAM for most systems and four or more gigabytes for intensive users. Bear in mind that for more than four gigs of RAM, you need a 64-bit operating system such as Linux or Windows Vista Ultimate. You may want to consider the future as well, opting to get 2 2GB sticks rather than 4 1GB sticks. Each motherboard has a limited number of slots so the number of pieces may someday be a concern.
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Video/Graphics Cards
If you're into playing computer games or watching high-definition movies, you may want to invest in a graphics card to speed things up. The graphics card has a special processor that is very good at handling changing images and the geometry that goes with making images used in movies and games. If your biggest concerns are the internet, e-mail, and your music collection you probably won't need much of a graphics card at all. But even in lower level systems, an inexpensive graphic card can speed things up considerably as well as expanding your options for monitors. Some monitors need a special adapter and some video cards will let you plug in multiple monitors.
If you're into gaming, you'll want a modern graphics card with enough memory and power to support the games you enjoy. Be aware that a high end card and the bigger power supply it will require will also raise your cost. If you want the coolest, fastest, best-looking images and highest framerates out there, this is totally worth it.
Alternatively, if you do highly complex image rendering and digital content creation, a regular gaming card won't suit your needs. The FireGL series from ATI and the Quadro cards from nVidia are available from entry-level chips that will speed things up a little bit to cards that cost thousands of dollars and can cut hours or days off rendering jobs.
As always, if you have questions, let us know. We'll be more than happy to answer them and help you find what you need.
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If you're into gaming, you'll want a modern graphics card with enough memory and power to support the games you enjoy. Be aware that a high end card and the bigger power supply it will require will also raise your cost. If you want the coolest, fastest, best-looking images and highest framerates out there, this is totally worth it.
Alternatively, if you do highly complex image rendering and digital content creation, a regular gaming card won't suit your needs. The FireGL series from ATI and the Quadro cards from nVidia are available from entry-level chips that will speed things up a little bit to cards that cost thousands of dollars and can cut hours or days off rendering jobs.
As always, if you have questions, let us know. We'll be more than happy to answer them and help you find what you need.
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