Tech Quote: Software holds back Hardware

"It's hardware that makes a machine fast. 
It's software that makes a fast machine slow. "
- Craig Bruce

Whether your watching YouTube videos or browsing Facebook, your computer's performance is constantly held back by the amount of data it constantly has to manage. Performance is especially important these days with a media-centered internet.

In most cases, your favorite websites load most smoothly on the most simple and maintained machines. Always think carefully about whether you really need something stored on your immediate computer or on an external drive. Install only what is essential and only keep everything else as long as you need it.

Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson

Besides using virus protection and defragging cluttered hard drives, the mere practice of keeping most of your data on drives separate from the Operating System can seriously improve performance. Better yet, having the data on external drives that are only used when you actually need the data can improve things further.

It seems like no matter how powerful your system is, the more data and drives you have - the less performance you'll get. Operating systems are especially notorious for getting slow with both the age and quantity of software on them.

Even with speedy Solid-State drives, the data itself can accumulate new burdens on the system overtime.
 Then there's data corruption that can cause the most unpredictable bizarre behavior, unlike faulty hardware that usually just shuts off entirely.

The speed of storage is progressing slower than all the other parts because it is the most complex to deal with. There's all kinds of tweaks and tools to cash in on this issue, but the most simple and powerful matter is - and still remains - having as little data connected to your system as possible.