External Hard Drive & Memory Storage

Understanding Why Your Hard Drive/Flash Storage Shows Less Space Than Advertised.

Why Advertised Storage Does Not Match The Usable Data Capacity The main reason comes down to differences in the way that operating systems, such as Windows display storage devices, and how USB Flash Drive & other storage device manufacturers advertise the storage capacity. Computers are based on binary math, which means storage is counted using base 2, not base 10, which storage is advertised as. So, while we measure a kilobyte as 1,000 bytes, Windows refers to a kilobyte as…

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How To Encrypt USB Drives and Memory Sticks

How to Encrypt Your USB Memory Stick / Flash Drive (Windows, MacOSX, Linux, FreeBSD, Raspbian, Android & iOS)

Encrypting a Portable USB Drive. Protecting your personal data on USB memory sticks is incredibly important, even if it’s only photo’s or videos! If the USB stick is lost or stolen, the data is protected and cannot be accessed by anyone else.  For more important documents such as office work or sensitive information, encrypting the USB drive, with secure software and a password, is purely common sense. One of the most popular encryption software available is called Veracrypt.  The software…

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Manage Storage Partitions on Windows

How to Manage Storage Partitions on Windows

(The screenshots in this article were taken using Windows 10 but this guide should help with other operating systems such as Windows 11, 8.1, 7, Vista etc.) You can use the built-in Disk Management utility to resize, create, delete and format partitions and change their drive letters. The quickest way to launch the Disk Management utility is by typing “Disk Management” into the search box in the Control Panel or Start menu, then open the “Create and format hard disk…

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Format External Disk Drives for Windows 10 7 8

How To Format A New Drive For Use With Windows 7, 8 or 10

Formatting a drive for use with Windows 7, 8 & 10 Before you can use a new external drive with Windows 7, 8 or 10 you will need to format it (unless it states it is pre-formatted). There are several options which we will look at to help you choose the correct format for you and show you how to ready the disk for use. Step 1. Right-Click on the Windows icon in the lower left-hand corner and select Disk Management Step…

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How to format a drive for an Apple Mac

How to Format a New External Drive For Use With An Apple Mac

Formatting an external drive for use with an Apple Mac Before you can use a new (or old) drive with a Mac you will need to format it. There are several options which we will look at to help you choose the correct format for you and show you how to ready the disk for use Step 1: Launch Disk Utility Open Applications > Utilities, which is found through Finder, then open the Disk Utility application. You should see a…

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