For novice buyers of computers or of a separate hard drive, its often hard to tell exactly how big you should go. Many people dont even have a good idea of what a "gigabyte" is or how much space there files will take up. How exactly do you figure out how much storage space youll need?

If you already have a computer, this is actually an extremely easy thing to figure out. Right-click on your C: drive under the My Computer option, and select "Properties." This will bring up a little pie chart that tells you how much space you have and how much you are using. It will tell you in "gigabytes" or "GB", a unit of storage space. Once youve found out how much youre currently using, you should make sure that you get a hard drive that has at least a little more youll want at least 20-25% more than what youre currently using, just to allow yourself room to grow. If youre on the low end (under 20 gigabytes), you should get even more, mainly because newer programs will take up more and more space. What if you dont already have computer space to measure? It depends on what youre doing with it. If youre just using your computer for basic business functions (e-mail, typing, etc.) then you only need 20-40 gigabytes. If youre using it for games, youll want as much as you can get. If you have more advanced business functions (such as graphics design), then go for at least 100 gigabytes or so. The most important thing is that you dont want to run out if you do, youll have to delete something or buy a whole new drive.