How to get more storage on my laptop?

The ongoing decade has witnessed a drastic increase in data production. Everyone has data and needs to manage it. From the smartphone we have to the laptop at the workstation, we are busy using data almost the whole day.

So, increasing storage has become a significant concern nowadays. Thus a non-techy may wonder how to get more storage on the laptop. We need to find ways of adding on more storage (either internal or external), so the microprocessor may perform its magic. We are presenting various options and ideas for increasing the laptop’s storage.

Adding more storage to your laptop is possible. The brand doesn’t matter, whether you have a Dell, HP, Acer, or Asus laptop. This works for all laptops.

How Add More Storage On My Laptop:

There exists a plethora of storage ideas and options that one may adopt. However, it depends on the existing laptop storage capacity. A few laptop storage devices are as follows.

External storage ideas

• Flash drives
• External hard drives
• Cloud servers

Internal storage ideas

• Upgrading hard drives
• Upgrading RAM (to boost processor’s speed)
• SD cards
• SSD drives

SSD Storage

SSD stands for a solid-state drive. It is a storage device that uses flash-based memory storage (modern technology). It is far better and swifter than the traditional mechanical hard drives in many aspects. 

Nowadays, the DVDRoms are obsolete. The newer laptops are coming up without them. If you have an older laptop, don’t use your DVDRom for long, and need to increase your laptop’s storage, you may replace it with an SSD storage drive. The easiest steps are as follows.

• Take a soft cloth or towel and put it on some hard surface like a table.
• Invert your laptop (its screen should face the towel side).
• Open the four screws of DVDRom with a screwdriver and take it out.
• Remove the DVD-ROM from the caddy (caddy is an aluminium-made case or tray in which the SSD or DVD mounts in).
• After mounting the SSD, put the cady inside the DVD slot and lock the screws.

Cloud Storage

Clouds are a super-fast, reliable, and easily manageable data storage source. They comprise physically dispersed data centers with extensive servers around the globe. When the user uploads the data over the cloud, the data is sent to the cloud service provider through an internet connection (the web services). The cloud service provider is an administrator who puts the data in the data centers. When the user needs the data, the cloud server returns it. Cloud storages are very scalable and economical for users. Most of them are almost free of cost. Some of the best examples for cloud storage are:

• Google Drive
• Microsoft One Drive
• iDrive
• iCloud
• pCloud
• Backblaze
• Dropbox
• Egypt Connect,

However, one of the great concerns regarding cloud storage is privacy. Although the cloud infrastructure has been upgraded in terms of privacy and security, privacy attacks still occur. Therefore, now private clouds are also available.

External Drive

The external drives are the storage devices that store and manage the data outside the computer system. The external storage for the laptop is portable (easily be attached and removed from the computer).

These drives can also be attached to many computers like flash drives. External drives can either be a solid-state drive (SSD) or a hard disk drive (HDD) mounted in an aluminum caddy or a drive enclosure with a USB wire.

You may check if your external drive comprises an SDD or HDD by simply typing the dfrgui command in the Run box and opening the data fregmentar. There you can check the media type. It will tell you if it is SSD or HDD. Let’s have a fair comparison between SSD and HDD. 

Features	Solid-state drives (SDDs)	Hard disc drives (HDDs)
Speed	Faster (200-2500 MB/s)	Slow (hardly up to 200 MB/s)
Life-span	Short	Long
Strength	Shock-bearer	Fragile
Heat	Less heat emission	High heat emission
Noise	No	Yes, due to mechanical runs
Cost	Expensive	Cheap

Home Cloud Server

If you need data storage and share it for all your personal and home computers, the home cloud servers are good options. These are scalable, secure, and easily manageable cloud solutions. In a home cloud server, you make a cloud of your own by attaching a storage device, preferably an external hard or even a flash drive to your connected WiFi. Thus, the drive becomes a cloud for you, and you can easily access and store data from any computer or mobile connected to that WiFi.

One of the main advantages of a home cloud server over a public cloud is that it is within your premises and control, thus a very low risk for privacy disclosure. This advantage can be an otherwise situation if the external drive gets stolen or lost from your premises. Apart from this,  it is an easily manageable source of data storage.

Remove unnecessary files

You might have experienced a terrible situation when your laptop gets hanged due to a clutter of junk files in your storage. These are unnecessary files; you placed them for a reason but have not used them for a long time. These files not only grab your storage but also suck your laptop’s memory. Remove them! The few easiest tips are here.

Windows OS

• Open Control Penal, go to ‘Add or Remove Programs. Select the program you think is unnecessary for you. Remove it permanently.
• If the program is running in the background (Unnecessary Chrome tabs opened in the browser for a long time), open the task manager by pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL simultaneously and using the end task option. 
• Right-click over C drive or any other partition when you installed windows, go to Properties, open Disk cleanup, and use it to clean the disk occasionally.

Linux OS

• In Linux GUI, you can easily remove any application or program you think is unnecessary. Just do a right-click and remove!
• For removing unnecessary junk files, you can use the command ‘sudo apt-get auto-remove.

MAC

• In MAC, you can use ~/Library/Caches in Finder.

SD CARD

You may use an SD card if you want to get more storage but can not afford an expansive SSD. SD card stands for the secure digital card, which is non-volatile. It can be attached to any laptop like a flash drive. It also uses a flash-based storing mechanism as in the SSDs. It can easily be attached to a laptop through an inbuilt card slot.

However, some laptops do not have a slot to be attached through an SD card adapter with a USB option or simply a card reader. If you can not get an adapter or reader for an SD card, just put the SD card in your phone and use your phone as a card reader. However, in the phone option, the speed can be compromised.

Upgrade Your Existing Hard Drive

Unfortunately, you can not add additional storage devices into your existing hard drive as it has inbuilt sectors. However, you can replace it with a newer and upgraded hard disk drive.

For example, you are currently using a 500 GB hard drive, and it is insufficient for you may replace it with a 1TB or 2TB drive as per your need. You can easily do this replacement at home by following a few steps;

• Invert your laptop over a soft surface and open the screws from the laptop’s back.
• Just take out the existing hard drive after disconnecting the cables.
• Replace the new one and lock the screws again

However, the existing hard drive should not be sold as the data can be retrieved by data retrieving software. Even the deleted files can be recovered. Thus, never sell your hard drive or give it to anyone else for the sake of security measures. You must not sell even your flash drives, external hards, SD cards, or any storage medium for money. It may cost you money, but privacy costs you a lot! 

Frequently Asked Question:

Conclusion

With the advent of the huge data revolution, everyone has data and needs to manage it. For this purpose, increasing more storage in laptops has become a serious concern.

We have discussed various types of storage devices (external or internal), their storing mechanism, and their comparisons. However, choosing a storage device depends on different factors, including the user’s requirement, budget, and compatibility with the laptop.

We hope that this article will give you a good insight into storage devices for your laptop!