A few questions, including 64-bit and hard drive

[yettimillan]

Hi firstly i am having a bit of trouble understanding exactly what 64-bit means, could someone help here.

I posted recently a thread about my hard drive fluctuation the amount of space it has remaining. I was told it was normal and its just what the system does. However i have lost almost 500mb of space on the hard drive over the last 4 or 5 days. Is this normal bearing in mind my macs just over 2 weeks old.

And last does apple continue to update old OS's once new ones are launched. Im running Leopard and cant the snow leopard when it comes out so i'm just wondering if there will be a final release or update or will they continue to update it into the future.

Thanks...

 

[spinnerlys]

64-bit - 2^64 bit addressable RAM theoretically, compared to 32-bit you can address more than 2GB RAM with one application.

500MB - As you have a finite amount of RAM, sometimes the OS (Operating System) writes data out of the RAM onto the disk drive, it's called swapping.

Updates - sometimes Apple does that, but only to fix severe issues. As far as I know, Tiger came out, and still Apple released one point update for Panther.

And you can use MRoogle to find out more about 64-bit, or any other search engine.
Also there is Disk Inventory X to scan your HDD, so you'll see where all the available space is gone.



http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/
via
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=safari&rls=en-us&q=64+bit&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g10

 

[BlueRevolution]

Wikipedia link for 64-bit. Most of the disadvantages of 64-bit computing no longer apply to Macs as they have been using 64-bit processors for years. The 64-bit version of Windows still has some driver and software compatibility issues.

We have posted a number of suggestions in your original thread which you have yet to respond to. I suggest continuing the conversation there.

Apple does update legacy OSes, but not indefinitely. The last update of Tiger, 10.4.11, was released 3 weeks after Leopard 10.5.0. They still release minor software and security updates from time to time, such as to QuickTime, iTunes, and Safari.

 

[qacjared]

Hi firstly i am having a bit of trouble understanding exactly what 64-bit means, could someone help here.

I posted recently a thread about my hard drive fluctuation the amount of space it has remaining. I was told it was normal and its just what the system does. However i have lost almost 500mb of space on the hard drive over the last 4 or 5 days. Is this normal bearing in mind my macs just over 2 weeks old.

And last does apple continue to update old OS's once new ones are launched. Im running Leopard and cant the snow leopard when it comes out so i'm just wondering if there will be a final release or update or will they continue to update it into the future.

Thanks...

losing 500mb! That's little for me. Because of podcasts, my iTunes library flucuates about 5 gigs everyweek, not to mention virtual memory (which happens even with my 4 gigs of RAM) and don't forget your downloads folder. The stuff you download can add up.

As for updates, remember 10.4.11 (Tiger) came out about 3 weeks after leopard was released and Tiger still gets security updates. (Didn't Panther get one this year as well?) Safari 4 was just released for Tiger. iTunes is still supported on Tiger and the last iTunes for panther was released less than a year ago.