Things to Consider when Buying a PC in Japan

So you just got off the plane, at where... Narita? Kansai International? Haneda?

...and you NEED a new computer! 

So, what happened? Maybe...

a). You didn't bring a computer because you could only carry so much luggage, and you figured you'd buy one here anyway.

b). You brought your old computer with you but it died recently.

c). Your old PC just doesn't cut it anymore, and you need to upgrade.

d). You're looking to buy your first computer, and you just want to know what options you have open to you, being in Japan, and all.

What things should you consider? What points are specific to Japan only?
What general points should you think about before for any PC purchase?

Japan specific - Questions you should ask yourself before buying a PC in Japan.

• Operating System - English or Japanese: Why would you choose one over the other?
• Keyboard Layout: Again, Japanese or English? What are the pros & cons of each?
• Language Input Options: Do you want to type in both English and Japanese, or English only?

General - Questions you should ask yourself before buying any computer.

• What will you use your PC for? Content Creation, or Content Consumption? Gaming? [ie. Will you need a Hi-spec, or Average-spec PC?]
• Where will you use it? At home only, or are you a road-warrior? [ie. Will you want a Desktop, or Laptop?]
• Should you choose an SSD or HDD? [Do you favor speed, or storage capacity?]
• Integrated Graphics, or Dedicated Graphics? [If you play graphics intensive games, "Crysis", for example, you'll need dedicated graphics.]
• Memory vs Storage. [Memory, a.k.a. "RAM", is short-term high-speed memory that helps your CPU run at full speed. Storage, is how many movies you can keep on your hard-disk.]
• Back-Up.
• CloudStorage for safety. [Consider Google Drive, or SkyDrive for your important files in case something goes wrong.]

All of these options will be covered, and my aim is to give you as much information

as possible before you spend your hard-earned yen on a new machine.

Memory vs. Storage

This is basically semantics; a geek's gripe, if you will.

It often happens when people talk about "filling up their hard-drive", and they mistakenly say:"I ran out of memory!"
Err... no you didn't! You ran out of "storage"!

Let's talk for a minute about the difference between the two: First, when you buy a new PC, there will generally be two separate numbers followed by "GigaByte" - for example, 500GB and 4GB.

Storage

The larger number in the above example, 500GB, is your "storage" - This is the capacity of your hard-disk. When you fill your computer with movies, music, photos and other files, they are all stored on the hard-disk. When the hard-disk becomes very close to being full, it can seriously affect the performance of your machine. This is a common issue with many older notebook PCs with small disk capacities (under 300GB) - A common fix for this is to "delete the old files you don't need (or transfer them to an external hard-drive), and defragment your hard-disk".

When your "Storage" is full, your hard-disk will change from blue to red

Memory

The smaller number in the above example, 4GB, is your "Memory" - or more exactly, Random Access Memory (RAM), sometimes also called, "System Memory". Nothing is stored in the RAM, nothing long-term, anyway. The RAM's job is to help the processor (CPU) do its computations as fast as possible.

Analogy one: Imagine that your PC is a car. You have the gas-tank, that's your "Storage", or hard-drive. Then you have the engine, that's your CPU (Central Processing Unit), or processor. Well, your RAM is like the carburetor; it's what helps the engine (CPU) run as efficiently as possible. You might have a big V8-engine, but if the carburetor is too small, the engine won't be able to mix enough air with the fuel and it won't produce much power. When your CPU is making computations, ie. "computing", it needs to store and retrieve thousands of tiny pieces of data relevant to those calculations, as quickly as possible, while it's crunching the numbers - your hard-disk is way too slow for this process. This is what the RAM is for. If there is not enough space in the RAM to store all the pieces of data for each computation, it will take that much longer for the CPU to finish the process. This is particularly important when you are trying to work with many large files, such as rendering many Gigabytes worth of video, for example.

Analogy two: Imagine you had to collate multiple copies of a 20-page document - In this case, you are the CPU - you are doing the work. In order to collate these documents efficiently, you would need enough space to make 20 separate piles of each page. You would need the "desk-space" to do the work. Now imagine if your desk was only large enough to hold 10 piles of each page (no putting the rest on the ground!), you would only be able to do 10 pages at a time, and then you'd have to put the first lot aside, swap them with the unfinished ones, and do the second lot of 10 pages, and finally bring them together to make the 20-page documents - what a hassle. In short, if you didn't have enough desk-space, you would have to double-handle everything, and the entire process would take much longer and cause more stress than necessary. In this case, RAM (Memory) is like your desk-space. If you don't have enough, it can slow down the computations of the entire system - Even if you have a high-powered processor like a Core-i7.

The Vista days...

This was quite a common problem not so long (4-6 years) ago. When Windows Vista came out, it was recommended to have at least 2GB of RAM, just so Windows itself could operate smoothly, let alone other programs running on top of it. At the time, memory was prohibitively expensive, and the first place PC manufacturers looked to cut costs was with RAM. Many systems shipped with only 1GB of RAM. The original Vista (before Service Pack 1) was already a bit sluggish, but coupled with a lack of RAM, it made for a very labored experience.

So, how much RAM should you get?

Thankfully, RAM prices have dropped almost ten-fold since then, and many a system has been rejuvenated with a quick 4GB memory install.

Now that the price of RAM is so reasonable, 4GB is thought of as the "minimum", and 8GB the solid "recommendation" for the average user. For professionals in the video editing industry, 16GB is sometimes not enough, so 32GB or even 64GB is often suggested.

A system with a moderate to heavy workload can easily use over 5GB of RAM

Back-Up

We all know we should do it, but how many of us actually do it?

I mean, how hard is it, really?

What types of backup are there? How much will it cost? Which type is right for me?

The simplest solution: An External Hard-Drive.

Western Digital My Book 2TB External Hard Drive

This is easiest way to keep your data safe! And it’s not that expensive. You can get an external hard-drive case (for a 3.5” HDD) now for around $30 – The actual hard-drive itself will be extra, depending on the capacity you want – and they connect straight into a USB port. I couldn’t be simpler. I recommend though, that you spend a little extra, around $60~$70, and get one with a LAN connection, that you can plug straight into your router – This is very simplified NAS (Network Attached Storage) – That way, if you have multiple PCs in your household, you can backup every PC on your network (provided you get a big enough hard-drive).

You will need to set up your backup schedule in Windows – either every day / every week / every month – and after the initial backup, it will only need to back up any new or changed files each time thereafter. For a single drive unit, you can now get up to a 4TB hard-drive.

Moving up a notch: NAS (Network Attached Storage)

QNAP TS-410 Network Attached Storage (NAS)

A NAS unit can be just a single disk, or it can be multiple disks connected together in a RAID array. A NAS is basically a low-power, headless (meaning no monitor, keyboard or mouse) computer that is always on, running in the background, sharing files with all the other computers on your “LAN” network. You can connect with the NAS in your browser – IE, Firefox, Chrome, etc. They can be a little tricky to set up, but once they are up and running, you can basically set & forget. Most ready-made consumer models generally come in 2, 3 or 4 drive configurations, although you can get them with more than 12 HDDs. Needless to say, they are more expensive than a simple hard-drive case.

Off-Site Back-Up

If you decide to use an external hard-drive or NAS system for your back-up, you are technically only half covered. These will protect you from data-loss in the event of a catastrophic hard-drive failure in your PC, but they won't protect your data from natural disasters - Being in Japan, earthquakes & tsunamis come to mind. If your house/apartment were to be flattened or washed away, you would lose all your data. The best way to ensure redundancy is to also have a second (or third) back-up hard-drive set up in a different location - the further away, the better. The best way to do this is to work with a friend or relative in a different city, or even a different country. Have them set up an external hard-drive on their system. You can then use a (FREE) service, such as BitTorrent Sync, to make an identical copy of your back-up drive hundreds or even thousands of miles away.

Paid On-Line Back-Up Services

These services are, by definition, Off-Site. Depending on how important your data is to you, and how much you’re willing to spend, you can get full on-line backup for all of you precious data. Some of the more common on-line back-up services are: Carbonite, CrashPlan, Mozy, and MyPCBackUp. Prices range from between $3.00 ~ $10.00 per month; most with unlimited storage. These services offer the most protection, as your data is spread across these companies' multiple servers, so if one goes down, your data is still safe. Here is a list of the Best 10 On-Line Back-Up

For the best protection, a combination of all of the above will certainly ensure that you will always have copies of your important documents and precious photos, videos and music safely preserved, and up to date, in (hopefully) several locations. Don't forget to check out Cloud Storage for Safety for some extra tricks to keep your personal files safe.

Cloud Storage for Safety

I know! I know! You've heard it 1,000 times, "BACK-UP!"

But still, there are those out there who simply don't do it (for whatever reason).
However, there are a few ways to keep at least SOME of your data safe in the event of a ... "Hard Disk Failure!"

There are a lot of Cloud-Storage / PC-syncing options out there these days, and one of the best uses for them is as a real-time back-up system. The most common ones out there are:

DROPBOX - 2GB FREE

This was the original cloud-storage/ computer-syncing solution. They started out with 2GB free, and that's all they still offer. That said, they were the first, and their syncing is often faster than the others, making them a good choice for file-sharing too.

GOOGLE DRIVE - 15GB FREE

Google offers it's Drive to all those with a "Gmail" account - If you don't have one yet, they are worth every penny (that's right, it's FREE). Not only do you get the Google Drive, you also get many other productivity utilities, such as Google Docs, and Calendar, etc. 

SKYDRIVE - 7GB FREE

Microsoft's SkyDrive (soon to be renamed after losing a legal battle against British Satellite TV company, BSkyB) offers the most free storage of the lot - 7 gigabytes. This might do for keeping your music, or photo collection safe, provided you don't have thousands of CDs burned to your computer, or you don't store all of your pics in .raw format.

No more "My Documents" folder.

Windows won't really let you delete your "My Documents" folder, as it's part of your "Libraries" filing system (OK, you can delete it, but it may cause problems when installing programs that keep stuff there by default - it's best to leave it where it is), but nobody's forcing you to use it.

Instead, install one of the options above, and then create the equivalent to your "My Documents" inside it!

Tip: Name it something slightly different, so you don't mix the two up, and then keep ALL of your important documents in there.
Even Dropbox, with only 2GB of free storage, should be enough for most document hogs - Various Word, Excel, and PDF files, numerous versions of your resume, invoices & scanned bills, tax returns, etc - It takes a heck of a lot to fill 2 gigabytes with those kinds of files. And they are the ones that could cause the most trouble if you lost them.
As a bonus, if you have two (or more) PCs on which you need to carry these "important files", you won't need to transfer this folder from machine to machine - Simply install Dropbox on each computer, and your files will automatically appear as soon as you connect to the internet.

Personally, I use Dropbox to store passwords on all machines, as well as transferring files to/from my wife's computer. I use Google Drive as my "My documents" folder - My entire personal history is in there, including tax files, research papers, invoices...everything - All accessible from any computer as well as my smartphone. Finally, I use SkyDrive to store and share all my photos. Although I have to admit, the 7GB can get full pretty quickly, especially if you have a decent camera that takes hi-res photos.

Alternatives

Dropbox, Google Drive, and SkyDrive are not the only ones out there.
Other cloud-storage solutions are: Box, Copy, Cubby, CX, IDrive, MiMedia, Mozy, and SugarSync, to name a few.
PCMag has a list of 18 of the best cloud storage, and how much space they are offering.
PCWorld has some great tips on how to Supersize your free cloud storage.

You should STILL back up properly anyway!

Of course, all of these are limited in the amount of storage they give you, and if you're selective about what you put in them, you can keep the things that are most important to you safe. But these will only protect some of your stuff - There is no substitute for a full back-up onto an external hard-drive (or several external hard-drives... in different locations).