A Cautionary Tale of Laptop Space Issues

There I was, working on my computer this past Friday, when a message appeared that I hadn’t seen on my machine, “Your Startup Disk is almost full.” I don’t remember what it was exactly – what I do remember was that I was completely freaked out because I needed to get this After Effects project out. Now, I couldn’t use my Firewire drives because I am using them for my Lightroom catalogs.

As I am thinking about this, I am scanning my desktop – and lo and behold, I am reminded of my space.. 500GB of a Ministack NAS that I have setup on the network, just waiting to be used. Yes, I know that its 10/100 does not make it the fastest drop in the world, but I’m not looking to continuously move files back and forth from it – it really just serves as a vault for some files, keeping my pictures and these key files off my computer. It definitely was a sight for sore eyes.

More on the tale, and our weekly contest after the jump.

(Ok.. when we last left RC, he was having a heart attack as he realized the looming end of his hard drive space… what ever will he do?)

Going into Spotlight, I found the projects that were taking up all of the space, and in a couple of hours my computer was humming along nicely on 50GB of free space. I installed it and wrote about it a couple of weeks back, but hadn’t really put it through its paces. I guess now, I can really say NAS has saved my .. well, you know.

I’m really looking forward to their Guardian Maxximus and the Ministack V3.

How to get yourself out of this situation:

If you do video editing, search your computer for those .mov files. You will be surprised at how many takes of one thing can just chew up hard drive space.

Get rid of unnecessary PSD files. Matt Kloskowski turned me on to this. By doing a search in Lightroom, I can usually find a bunch of PSD files that I made, but really didn’t intend to keep. Delete those and you will be a happy camper.

If you have a big MP3 collection, keep it on a removable HD: I know.. your collection ABSOLUTELY NEEDS to be on your laptop. This is how I see it – if I am working in my office, the computer is plugged in- so I don’t care how many drives are connected to it. Keeping my iTunes collection on an external drive lets me access it as soon as I plug it in. When you factor in that I have the entire Billboard Top 100 from 1970 to present on my machine.. it kinda takes up space. More than you think. What if you are working mobile, and you can’t plug into your drive? Chances are you have your iPod, right? Take it out of the car and use it. Your computer will thank you.

OK.. so it’s time for a contest and a tutorial..

Zoomify Objects in Photoshop CS3
Geoff Blake has a cool tutorial on how to use Zoomify for Photoshop CS3. Make sure you check it out by clicking on this link.

Contest Time
This will definitely be a keeper for you guys. Let’s play scavenger hunt. In the Product Reviews section, someone rated the Mercury On The Go Pro (another fav hard drive). Who was the review by, and what was its rating (in stars).

Go to the Contact section of the site and select Layers TV from the Drop Down (I’ll be adding a Blog Contest link to this soon). Fill out your name, email, and the answer (The review was by… with a … star rating). We’ll stop taking entries on Thursday at 5PM, and post the winner on Friday.

The winner will receive NAPP Master Collection 3 DVD Set, and a year subscription to Layers Magazine. Good luck, and have a great Monday!