Posting here for traffic - what is bigger 32MB or 1TB? Brain can't work it out :-(

[HuskyLover1]

DD is wanting to get a Black Friday deal on a new laptop.

The one she's looked at is 2GB (of ram) and 32MB data storage.

I've found one that is 4GB and 1TB.

Is that better/bigger. I can't get my head around MB versus TB!

It's needed for Uni and we want to make sure there's sufficient memory etc.

Thanks is advance (brain hurting!)

TB is bigger. I don't know how many MB = 1TB though

The mb one must be a typo surely because 32mb would store about 6 songs.

The 1tb is the largest storage you've mentioned so get that if the rest of the spec is the same.

Megabyte v Terabyte?

Terabytes are far bigger.

There is no way you would get a laptop with 32 Megabytes of data storage these days.

That's what you got in the 80s.

1 TB is much larger. You can store very little on 32 mb.

32mb of data storage is nothing! you must mean 320GB...

4GB and 1TB would be better but TBH they lowest ram you should go for on a laptop is 8GB :)

A terabyte is a million megabytes.

this might help

1 TB = 1,000 GB = 1,000,000 MB

Hang on, I will post the 2 links....

www.argos.co.uk/product/5534997

versus

www.argos.co.uk/product/5489901

I'm such a technophobe!!

32 gb storage maybe? That would be a flash drive which is faster and lighter but much smaller in storage. And 4gb ram in the second one?

1TB is much much bigger storage but a tad slower so it depends on what she wants to use it for. On the whole though I'd go for the 4GB/1TB one. Both those numbers are better than 2/32 for university.

Go for the second one (1TB)

Ok - other points to consider is battery. One will mostly do all day in classes if that is want is wanted. The other definitely wont.

But one can play DVDs and the other cant. Is that an issue. It genuinely depends on what its needed for. If she stores music and films on her laptop then the 32gb model will not be enough. If she streams it from the internet (like spotify and netflix) then it would be ok. I appreciate that these things are not answering the question but it does depend on what it will be used for.

Oh sorry, I should have said 32GB not 32MB! Brain is fried!

So, 1TB is bigger than 32GB then?

So the second one, looks better.....???

Ignore me.. looking at the wrong thing...

still get the laptop with 1tb storage

Both are Windows 10 machines OddJobMan. I think the key issue is battery life and storage requirements.

1TB = 1000GB.
1GB = 1000MB.
Therefore 1TB = 1,000,000MB.

But I'd be surprised if it's actually 32MB, that would be incredibly small these days (or fifteen years ago for that matter). Are you sure it's not a misprint?

I suspect that the first laptop has 2GB of RAM and a 32GB harddrive. I also suspect that this first laptop's harddrive is a solid-state harddrive (does it say SSD?), and the second laptop's harddrive is a traditional one.

A solid-state drive (SSD) will be significantly faster than a traditional one but the first laptop has half the RAM (the memory the laptop uses to run everything) of the second one, meaning it would slow things down. More RAM = faster laptop.

My hunch would be that the second laptop (4GB of RAM and 1TB harddrive) would be better for her at uni. If she stores videos, photos and music as well as her uni work, 32GB will be used up incredibly quickly. She could get a USB harddrive as well of course but in my personal opinion these are best used to backup data rather than being constantly plugged in to the laptop.

In my opinion the first laptop (2GB RAM / 32GB harddrive) is suitable for someone who uses it on the move a lot, but then has a "proper" PC back at home. The second would be more useful if it is the main computer that she will be working on.

Obviously this is all just my opinion, what works for me won't necessarily work for someone else!

Thanks for replies! I didn't notice that about the DVD drives (thanks). I think she stores music and she does stream films etc. I don't think she'd take to lectures, so battery not a big deal.

Thanks so much. Aargh the second one now showing out of stock in her area, but at least I am a bit clearer now as to what is better. Spent ages googling to no avail, and got the answer in 5 mins on MN! Brilliant! :-)

laptoping.com/laptop-pc-storage-explained-hdd-ssd-hybrid-emmc.html

This explains it well.

Basically the eMMC hard drive is slower and like Flash storage. I'd suspect that this set-up favours storage in the cloud as opposed to locally.

I should add:

RAM is the memory that runs the laptop. The more RAM, the faster things will load and the more things you can do at once.

The harddrive is the place where you store your data, all your music, videos and programs are stored here. The bigger it is, the more you can put on it.

Whatever the stated size of the harddrive, you will find that there is a lot less available that you can actually use, because the operating system (Windows) will use a significant chunk. I would be surprised if you had more than 20GB of usable space on the 32GB laptop - this is a significant decrease to what the advertised space appears to be.

On the second laptop, you're still going to lose space because Windows still needs to use it, but you're starting of with much more in the first place.

The first laptop is more aimed at people who store all their data "in the cloud" (ie, online, not physically on their own computer). This is fine for some people, but it means that when you are away from a decent WiFi connection you have no access to your files.

If all this makes no sense, I'd just say go with the second (4GB/1TB) laptop. I think it would be more suitable in your case.

Thanks all, for some great advice. I'll see if I can find the 2nd one in a nearby town or from another shop.