The SSHD: Hybrid hard drives that are both big and fast

SSHDYou’ve probably heard of SSDs (solid state drives). These are hard drives that use a type of very fast and very robust flash memory for data storage instead of a spinning magnetic disc.

SSDs are very fast, and until recently, their storage capacity was limited relative to old-fashioned mechanical spinning HDDs. They were also rather pricey.

You probably haven’t heard quite as much about SSHDs: hybrid mechanical hard drives with a small amount of SSD-type storage built-in. The idea here is that the SSD part of the drive can be accessed very quickly, so it acts as a very fast buffer between your puter and the slower mechanical part of the drive.

The result? SSHDs are faster than a mechanical HDD, not as fast as an SSD, but still offer 2TB, 4TB, or even more storage space – all at an affordable price.

(more…)

Change the display language in Windows 10

Windows 10 Language SelectionIn the olden days, you were quite often locked to one language in Windows, unless you had Windows 7 Ultimate.

These days, with Windows 10 you can change the display language in most cases.

There are a few exceptions, like if you buy a puter with an OEM version of Win 10. Some OEM versions of Windows 10 only allow certain languages.

For example, a new laptop purchased in France with OEM Windows 10 may allow only UK English, French, and German. Still, that’s better than nothing!

So, how do you change languages and get all the settings just right?

(more…)

Windows + Linux dual boot: How to shrink a Windows disk the easy way

Windows-Linux Dual BootLet’s say you want to dual-boot between Windows and some flavor of linux.

You might think that you need some kind of fancy partitioning software like Paragon Hard Disk Manager 15 Suite to free up disk space for the linux partitions.

You might also think that your linux installer will do everything for you automatically.

As it turns out, neither of the above are always true!

Sometimes, you need free space on your drive in order for the linux install (even Ubuntu) to be happy.

Fortunately, there is a very easy and built-in way to shrink a partition in all modern versions of Windows without any fancy software!

(more…)