OK, I've moved premises - and now I'm told I can have 5Mb broadband (
yayy ), I've just snagged a Draytek 2600 off ebay for a song, and all
that's left is to choose who to give me money to. Sort of.

Thing is, how much speed/download limit do I really need?

I generally just send emails ( text ), I filter out the crap jokes
that 'friends' send me, I browse the newsgroups, download the odd
freeware app and updates, I maintain a small website that gets updated
every couple of months, I have a chat on Yahoo, so a spot of ebaying -
and I sometimes grab a few MP3's when someone asks me to listen to a
particular song ( I don't plan on building a collection )...and there
won't be any kids using the computer.

Having lived with a dialup speed of 31,200 for the last few years ( so
512k or 2Mb means zilch to me, I've no idea what it performs like )
and managing fine on BT's allowance of 150 hours per month, I'm
wondering whether my online habits will increase that much...or am I
likely to be completely amazed by the power of BB and start
downloading everything in sight?

Regards,



--
Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations
www.shwoodwind.co.uk
Emails to: showard{whoisat}shwoodwind{dot}co{dot}uk

In response to what Stephen Howard <seesigfor@email.uk> posted in
news:fbvek29ibqpmq43dqtttp49ake9p5ij9kc@4ax.com:

5GB/month will be ample. You might exeed 2GB occasionally.

--
Joe Soap.

Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down.

"Joe Soap" <Use-Author-Supplied-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote in message
news:Xns986DB58BAADFAtityifvbdfgvbzdfdf@127.0.0.1. ..
I have similar usage to you and I manage to stay within 2Gig a month

George

In message <fbvek29ibqpmq43dqtttp49ake9p5ij9kc@4ax.com>, Stephen Howard
<seesigfor@email.uk> writes
or make sure the monthly price is cheap enough so you can afford more
disk space. My expereince? Since I got broadband (4 years ago IIRC) the
web has become my reference library and it's usually quicker to use
Google than read a manual to look up error codes or configuration
information, of course it's also much easier to waste loads of time
following 'interesting' trails away from the original information. YMMV
--
Clint Sharp

"Clint Sharp" <clint@clintsmc.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:T$X8rqDNE7RFFwXV@clintsmc.demon.co.uk...
In what way does browsing the internet require more disk space?

(kim)

On 1 Nov 2006, "kim" <ntscuser@aol.com> wrote:

Given the availability of more information, downloading pages easily/fast
and thus seeing links to PDFs, software, and so on, have you not found
that if you see a reference doc/datasheet online, the first thing you
do is to download it ? (or do you use the Adobe plug-in and view in
your web browser - I download about 95% of the time)

Although the suggestion is that one won't collect mp3s etc, I now have a
few GB of materials (PDFs, software, MP3s, movies, photos, etc) off many
different sources (several of them chargeable) and will be expanding to
a further 250 GB (or greater) network store in the next couple of months
(as one small 'christmas present' LOL). Some prefer to store data on DVD
but that's used more as a backup medium here, and most materials "online"
(either to my local PCs/iMac, or via the router, if I am not here) is now
the way I'm moving. Although upload speed is limited to 488 kbps, that
is quite adequate for most purposes.

Also, with free/cheap online storage now available, it is not uncommon
to do remote backups of up to 50 GB of data. DriveHQ gives anyone a
free 1 GB store (with Windows s/w to do automated backup, either on
a regular schedule, or 'on the fly' to archive any new documents).

"NoNeedToKnow" <me@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:bejgk2htas4b22i1dp9an3sq7fqjl2b5hj@complete-pc-services.info...
For downloading/filesharing yes, a HD can never be too big. You don't need
to "save" an Acrobat file or streaming video to HD be able to view them on
line.

(kim)

In message <lvCdnR45ZvAEadrYnZ2dnUVZ8smdnZ2d@giganews.com>, kim
<ntscuser@aol.com> writes
yourself is usually regarded as a good thing.
wants to hold your hand here anymore, maybe you could try Keyword
readthef**kingpost to find out why the big boys don't want to play with
you.
--
Clint Sharp

"kim" <ntscuser@aol.com> wrote in message
news:B7-dnXnTp9-KItXYnZ2dnUVZ8tednZ2d@giganews.com
[snip]

Hmm, but even 50GB is not very much these days, and given ADSL means
uplink is a lot slower than downlink, how long would it take to upload
that amount on a regular basis..? I do a full backup daily, I can't be
bothered messing with incremental backups, it's a lot easier to clone a
disk from a single image.

True, but it's always useful to have a local copy if you can't connect for
some reason. With the price of HDD's dropping like stones it makes sense
to get the largest you can afford. Then get another (external) one or two
and use them for regular backups..! I bought a 300GB Maxtor NAS drive for
less than £100 from Staples the other week, USB drives are even cheaper.

Ivor

On Tue, 31 Oct 2006 17:41:09 +0000, Stephen Howard
<seesigfor@email.uk> wrote:


plenty.
Is speed that big a factor though...is a 512k service a waste of time?

Cheers,



--
Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations
www.shwoodwind.co.uk
Emails to: showard{whoisat}shwoodwind{dot}co{dot}uk

"Ivor Jones" <ivor@despammed.invalid> wrote in message
news:4qs2iuFoedffU1@individual.net...
Already done; 80GB for Windows OS, 200GB internal plus 250GB external (all
Seagate). Not a good idea to have OS and data stored on the same drive.

You need USB2.0 for any kind of speed which means upgrading to at least SP-1

(kim)

"Clint Sharp" <clint@clintsmc.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:n5RRKrBaQNSFFwpd@clintsmc.demon.co.uk...
I download around 90GB a month, mostly from newsgroups, hardly anything from
websites. And you?

(kim)

"kim" <ntscuser@aol.com> wrote in message
news:6bmdnf_ehczTeNXYRVnyhg@giganews.com
[snip]

100-base-T is fast enough for me..!

I need NAS as the drives need to be accessible from any machine on the
network. A USB drive only works with the computer it's attached to.
Although if I ever need any more space my NAS drives have USB2.0 host
ports on the back that I can plug extra drives into.


Ivor

In message <1pSdnblSIoqHddXYnZ2dnUVZ8sydnZ2d@giganews.com>, kim
<ntscuser@aol.com> writes
your dad round if I upset you again?

BTW what do you download from usenet that uses 90Gb per month and isn't
in breach of copyright laws and/or various obscenity laws?
Clint Sharp

"Clint Sharp" <clint@clintsmc.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:966n6tH2rPSFFwr4@clintsmc.demon.co.uk...
My point was that the OP will not find anything of great interest worth
downloading from websites merely becuase he has broadband rather than
dialup. Filesharing and newsgroup applications are different matter. My dad
is 73 years old and a psychiatrist so it is possible you have met him
already )

Mostly retail DVDs such as Superman Returns, Mrs Henderson Presents, Da
Vinci Code (extended version), The Break-Up. Each file is circa 5GB. Some
are over 8Gb and require a lot of work before they can be burned to DVD.

There is no law against downloading movies. Copying and distributing them
are a different matter. I don't do either of the latter.

(kim)

"Stephen Howard" <seesigfor@email.uk> wrote in message
news:bsmhk2lf6sv0422evv7393rf29vnu7n0i4@4ax.com...
standard computer answer - it depends

It makes a big difference when you pull a large file (from usenet, a file
server or whatever).

But "startup" time dominates web access with relatively small amounts of
data (time from click to finished screen paint).

given the way TCP needs a couple of round trip times before a lot of data
flows, if the server is out of Europe with 100 mSec round trip time you may
not notice much of a difference.

if the sites are UK, then going from 512k on ADSL to 4 or 8 M can make a bit
of a difference - but only when the page has lots of graphics (and server at
the other end can keep up of course)

and in reality some slow downs are from other bits involved in the
application to browser chain of bits, such as server response lag.

i do some network debugging - and issues i get dragged into tend to be
driven by user complaints - the most irritating issues for a user are
intermittent delays rather than the actual "speed".

FWIW NTL are famous for slow DNS servers - 1 to 5 sec+ on the DNS round trip
sometimes makes that 1st page slow no matter how fast the link.
Regards

stephen_hope@xyzworld.com - replace xyz with ntl

On Wed, 01 Nov 2006 21:54:38 GMT, "stephen"
<stephen_hope@xyzworld.com> wrote:


Cheers for that - looks like the bells 'n whistles service is overkill
for my needs then ( cheapskate that I am ).

Regards,



--
Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations
www.shwoodwind.co.uk
Emails to: showard{whoisat}shwoodwind{dot}co{dot}uk