First I would suggest you click Start then My computer. Now take a look at the free space on the existing hard drive. Really you need a minimum of 25% free space for your swap file to work efficiently.

My personal feeling about external drives is that it is a new toy created to increase the income of the manufacturer. Not to say they are not useful but for a person with only one computer I fail to see the need. It is another thing cluttering up the desk. Install a second hard drive inside the case instead perhaps.

You already have a CD burner or possibly a DVD burner so why not use that to back up some stuff to create more room on the current drive.

Most external drives today do not have an independent power source so users should pay attention to the power supply in the computer and check if it can handle the extra needs of the external drive along with other peripherals already connected.

External drive should not be allowed to run forever, they can get quite warm if there is no fan in there to move the air.

I do own one, it is an early model with it's own power supply and internal fan. The downside is that only my main computer recognises it without a fuss. The other computers really resent it being plugged in so I cannot rely on it if push comes to shove.

Hopefully others will come along with their opinions. Mine are opinions, not necessarily facts :-)

An external hard drive will give you a place to keep your Data files, files that you create, word documents, photos. things like that, hard drives being mechanical will and do fail, so if your c drive that's the one you are using now fails you could simply access the external hard drive and still have all your data, this is a frequent problem for users that do not have a back up, they lose all there files. The portability factor is nice you can take the external drive with you an plug it in to a computer an all your files, photos, are with you. On the "C' drive the one you are using now is where the operating system is, 98, xp, vista whatever you are using, as this drive fills with data it starts to slow down, all drives should have 20% free space on them to function at there best.--So the to most important factors for having an external hard drive are 1-Backup files and 2.keeping 20% free space on the "c" drive. There all most like insurance, or a safety deposit box for your records. You could also Google "Benefits of external hard drive" , every one should have means to back up data, the external hard drive provides that.

I think an external hard drive will not in and of itself speed up your machine, unless it facilitates needed free space on the C drive. Have you done a defrag on the "C" drive lately? If not, do one. Does you computer support USB?

I use an external drive as back up, and they are now relatively inexpensive. I'd not buy a 320 GByte, that isn't inexpensive and is most likely way more than you need. I just purchased from Radio Shack a 2.5" based external drive that doesn't need a separate power supply. It has 60 GBytes, which may be more than you need, and it was about $50, don't remember the exact price. It is also very small and easy to "hide" next to the PC.

No computer-speed increase because of external drive. External drives mostly used for fast/convenient back-ups...and quite valuable for that. I wouldn't live without one for that reason alone. However, adding one will not, by itself, make your machine run faster.

Your "running slow" problems are almost certainly internal. I suspect software (OS) related. Agree with others about existing HD usage-level and benefit of de-frag. I would add a registry clean-up. (I prefer reg-seeker, but there are several others) Sounds to me like your machine could use a tune-up. Not hard to do using built-in plus free-download products. Or have a pro do it for you. Predict prices in the 50-100 range for the service.

If you want to do a tune up you could use the link below. This is a nice little free program. Click on each red or yellow flag for explanation and comments on how to improve it.

Here is a link that might be useful: PC Pitstop

WOW! Thanks for all the valuable information. I am getting a better picture of what I should be doing here. Seems like I have two different issues. 1...computer performance and 2....back up important files, photos, etc.

I do defrag on a regular basis, and the results show that I usually have around 25% free space after I defrag. I can follow directions fairly well and would like to try the suggestion to "do a tune up using built-ins". I don't know what it means when you say do a registry clean up. Anyone care to give directions using the "built-ins" that I already have.

Thank each of you for your response, it has been very helpful.

Well you could easily start with a disk clean up, defrag then run RegSeeker with default settings as asolo suggests then use the PC Pitstop I suggested above. From all that you would be more aware of potential problems.

PC Pitstop changes nothing, it simply tests various components on your computer and reports back to you with it's finding and recommendations.

Here is a link that might be useful: Free RegSeeker as suggested by Asolo

I didn't read all the replies, but I think it will help as your son says. That is, it will help if lack of space is the heart of your problems. You can easily transfer lots of your files to your external hard drive and access them from there, rather than continuing to clog up your internal hard drive. Of course, a second internal hard drive will serve the same purpose.

I have an external hard drive for not being able to connect a third internal drive. One internal drive is Win98, the second is XP. I connect and access the external drive through USB port. Works out great for me. err At least it did until I used up most of the space of all three LOL.

If you've got a four-year-old machine and you say you don't know what a registry clean-up is, I'd say -- bingo! -- there's the source of your machine's slowness. Registries that become clogged up over time (sometimes not much time!) are one of Windows' biggest nuisances.

Clean that thing up and you'll have a new machine....betcha.

Most of the problems owbist spoke of in his post just don't exist with newer external HDs. If you decide to by one, consider 500 gigs instead of 320. My 500 gig Calvary cost about the same as many 320's I found on line.

Thanks again for all the valuable information. I HAVE DONE all the suggestions posted above.

I defraged

I ran pit stop and did all the recommendations suggested there.

I purchased and ran reg-seeker.

AND......I did purchase an external HD. Got it at Sam's, its a Western Digital, 320gb., and transferred some file and pictures to it.

Defraged again and % of free space went from 25% to 29%, I think that's a big improvement.!

Computer is running much better, you guys and gals are very smart and helpful.

Now I have another question, but I'll ask it in another post..........

I just bought an external drive this week and love it. Apart from being able to free up space on C:\, it is good for arranging automatic backups. I have it set to back up all of my documents, music, and pictures 4 days a week at a time when I am not going to be using the computer. Until now, I had been putting these backups on CDs and DVDs, but it is too easy to forget to make those backups, and it is also a nuisance saving and keeping track of the disks I saved them on.

I like the way I can just drag things to the icon for the external drive, too. Easier than burning a CD or DVD, and it has the advantage that you can erase things and use that space again, the way you might on a floppy or a zip disk.

My external drive is a 500GB Maxtor that I found on sale Mon. at Fry's in San Diego, for only $99.99. (They seem to change the products on sale from day-to-day, so I don't guarantee anyone will find the same thing at the same price another day. DH paid the same there the day before I did, but he only got a 300GB Maxtor external hard drive)

Today a friend who has a business servicing other companies' computers told me he considers Western Digital's hard drives to be among the best, so you got a good one. However, I was happy when he also said I had gotten a bargain. Guess this is the time of year to look for bargains in computer stuff!

I probably should mention that since my FireFox browser's "Bookmarks" (=Favorites in I.E.) and things I have saved in its "Scrapbook" add-on, or extension, are not located in My Documents and thus do not come under the automatic backing up, I am going to take care to back them up to the external drive manually every few days.