Hardware Buying Guide for Small Business

(As printed in Greater Wilmington Business 11/2006)

This month we are going to discuss two potential hardware upgrades for your desktop or laptop computer: the Flat-Panel LCD monitor and the external hard drive.

The hard drive in your computer stores all your applications (like Microsoft Word or Apple iTunes), related documents, music, pictures, videos and the operating system (for example, Windows XP).

The mass legalization of digital music, ripped from CD’s or the web to our iPods or computers, high-resolution pictures and videos from digital cameras with ever-increasing megapixels, and increasingly sophisticated 3D role-playing games have dramatically increased our demand for storage. “It’s so sweet”, says local music enthusiast Greg Thompson, “I’ve got every CD I own ripped to my external hard drive”. Mr. Thompson’s collection consists of about 200 CD’s and over 2,000 songs.

Before the advent of cheap external drives, life was difficult for those of us who wanted to backup our data or transport it from one computer to another. For years, users had limited options in that floppies only stored a little more then 1MB/disk. As internal hard drives increased almost exponentially in size from tens of MB to tens of GB, the backup systems lagged. We had options like the Zip disk (100MB per disk) and the Castlewood Orb (2GB per disk). Finally, with the advent of the cost-effective external drive, our backup solutions are on par with the size of our internal hard drives.

For smaller file transfers that go between computers you can use a thumb-drive, also called a “flash drive” or a “jump drive”. They are currently about $25 for 1GB of storage and $45 for 2GB of storage.

But to back up your hard drive, an external hard drive is just the thing.

“Portable” means that the unit pulls power from the USB interface itself and has no AC cord. Otherwise, you’ll need an AC outlet handy. You then connect it to your computer through your USB, firewire, or Ethernet connection. An “Enclosure” ($30-50) is a cheap way to take an internal hard drive (often cheaper) and enclose it in a steel or plastic box and then connect it to your computer via a USB interface.

I personally have worked with the Lacie 80GB USB 2.0 hard drive ($100) and the SimpleTech 250GB Network Attached Storage drive ($200). The Lacie shows up as an additional drive under “My Computer” in Windows XP and allows you to copy files to it immediately. The SimpleTech has a more involved setup program, connects via Ethernet, comes with a print server (enabling me to print wirelessly from my laptop) and includes a backup scheduling application.

Monitor Upgrade
Do you have an aging 15”-17” CRT (short for cathode ray tube) monitor? Is desktop space at a premium? Or, have you purchased a laptop with a 12” screen to keep the weight down, and now you long for a larger screen to enhance your video editing, gaming, or surfing experience and simultaneously ease the stress on your eyes? Have no fear- the Flat-Panel LCD (short for liquid crystal display) is the answer. The good news is that prices have dropped dramatically on LCD monitors as companies have brought more factories online to increase production. You can get a respectable 17” LCD for under $200 now and it will give you more screen “real estate” then your old 17” CRT, which only provides about 16” of usable real estate.

Important attributes include the screen size, viewing angle, response time, native resolution, and whether it takes a Digital or Analog input. Additional bells and whistles include built-in speakers and USB ports.

Many of us have analog VGA outputs, a 15-pin trapezoid-shaped female plug on the back of your computer that usually has a picture of a monitor next to it. Digital outputs are faster because the screen information that goes from your computer to your monitor stays in the digital domain, rather then being temporarily converted to an analog signal. But, if your computer does not have a digital video connection then you don’t need one for your monitor.

LCD’s produce the best image at their native resolution. If you don’t have a widescreen laptop and your LCD is wide-screen, the image might become blurry due to scaling.

The response rate should be in the 8ms range for newer monitors - older LCD’s used to have a blurring problem due to slow response rates.

Be careful when purchasing a 19” Widescreen LCD vs. a conventionally-sized 17” LCD. The 19” widescreen will work better if you have a widescreen laptop, but both LCD’s will be the same height.

Upgrading to a new hard drive and LCD monitor will enhance your computing and entertainment experience, and give you the room to create, capture listen to or view all of those wonderful memories for many years to come. Or, at least, until the next upgrade.