Newbie Hd Upgrade Question

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03-09-2003, 07:54 PM
healimonster

my 1 year old computer's 20gig HD is clearly too small to download full length movies.

other than adding memory, I am pretty ignorant when it comes to hardware upgrades.

If I wanted to add another HD, how much would it cost and what would it entail nuts and bolts wise and computer software instalation wise.

I understand that this is a ambigous question and could be answered 100 different ways with discriptions that go on for ever... but i am just looking for a cheap and easy solution to my space limitations.

What would you do?
03-09-2003, 08:03 PM
geprobert

I have just had the same issue :P Just buying a new drive and installing it as a Slave to your current drive is fine.

The 20GB drive you've got is a perfectly respectable size in itself, and once you have moved all of your Movies on to your new (big!) drive the old one is plently big enough to act as your 'system' drive.

I've you've got enough money, the bigger drive the better I would say. I just bought a Maxtor 80GB for £70 - an I am more than happy with it.

One thing though - what operating system are you using? Also, did you mean that you wouldn't know what to do at all (like, where to put it and what to plug into it)?
03-09-2003, 08:11 PM
healimonster

The computer is a p4 compac running XP home.

Being that I need to max out my memory, the cheaper the better. I am thinking in the area of 100 us dollars or less.

As for where it goes and what you plug it into, yes i am asking that. not so much exactly what to do but how involved it is. Other then the physical location of it... is it as simple as pluging it into something.
03-09-2003, 08:12 PM
Yanks0826

Quote:

Originally posted by healimonster@9 March 2003 - 20:54
my 1 year old computer's 20gig HD is clearly too small to download full length movies.

other than adding memory, I am pretty ignorant when it comes to hardware upgrades.

If I wanted to add another HD, how much would it cost and what would it entail nuts and bolts wise and computer software instalation wise.

I understand that this is a ambigous question and could be answered 100 different ways with discriptions that go on for ever... but i am just looking for a cheap and easy solution to my space limitations.

What would you do?

Dude- I just bought a brand new 80 gig hard from Best Buy, it cost me $129 but I will be getting back $70 from mail in rebates. That is a great deal. Check them out, www.BestBuy.com, they also have free shipping and handling.

As for installing it, use the new hard drive as your master. There will be a jumper (small plastic piece) that comes with your new hard drive. Just make sure that piece is on the master setting and change your 20 gig to slave. Or vice versa.

Once you have your new HD connected, place your OS CD in and boot from that. It will ask your to format and then you can install a clean version of windows on your PC. I recommend XP Plus.
03-09-2003, 08:15 PM
Yanks0826

Quote:

Originally posted by healimonster@9 March 2003 - 21:11
The computer is a p4 compac running XP home.

Being that I need to max out my memory, the cheaper the better. I am thinking in the area of 100 us dollars or less.

As for where it goes and what you plug it into, yes i am asking that. not so much exactly what to do but how involved it is. Other then the physical location of it... is it as simple as pluging it into something.

Open your case, you should have a couple extra power cords available. Just screw in your new hard drive right next to your old one. Plug in the power cord, they have a number on it so you know.
Then plug in the cable you got with your hard drive, it is about 1 1/2 wide. Ine part plugs into a card, then middle section plugs into your slave drive then the end part plugs into your master.
03-09-2003, 08:25 PM
geprobert

If you look at this page:

http://compworks.users.btopenworld.com/hdd/hdd.html

then it goes over what you need to consider, and then what you need to do.

2 main considerations would be:
- do you want to just add extra space, or do you want to re-install Windows completely using the new drive as your 'main' drive?
- has your PC got the space for another drive?

by that I mean physical space. Some people I know that have bought 'pre-packaged' pc's (Dell, Compaq, etc.) have had MicroATX cases, with no room for a second Hard Drive.

Hope it is useful!
03-09-2003, 08:29 PM
ooo

damn what do you dl? lol.... i have a 16gb, delete the movies after i watch them or put it in discs .... :P
03-09-2003, 08:33 PM
Yanks0826

Quote:

Originally posted by Soul814@9 March 2003 - 21:29
damn what do you dl? lol.... i have a 16gb, delete the movies after i watch them or put it in discs .... :P

I put mine in discs. That way you can always watch them if you want to.
03-09-2003, 08:35 PM
ooo

exactly my point lol.... anyways 40gb = 100 dollars about
03-09-2003, 08:39 PM
healimonster

What are the advantages of making the new drive the master drive.

It seems like I would want my old drive to remain the same and I just want to add more space to store downloaded programs and movies.

If I add a drive as a slave, would I have to reinstall XP?
03-09-2003, 08:46 PM
ooo

no you would not... just set the other drive as slave and its fine... thats what i did before.... but then i took out the drive...
03-09-2003, 08:55 PM
geprobert

Quote:

Originally posted by healimonster@9 March 2003 - 20:39
What are the advantages of making the new drive the master drive.
...
If I add a drive as a slave, would I have to reinstall XP?

The advantages would basically be that your new drive would probably be faster and would offer better performance. Also, if it is possible, it is just better to have a bigger disc as the Master.

On top if that, this is a decision best made now. If you install the new drive as a Master, you can fill it up no worries. But if you added it as a Slave, filled it, but changed your mind in the future, you'd have a full Slave drive, no-where to put the files and you'd really be needing to format it to install XP on it as a Master. Stale-mate!

Having said that, it really doesn't matter. If you added the new drive as a slave, you wouldn't have to re-install.

If you wanted the new drive to be the Master, it would involve starting a-fresh, and saying goodbye to all of your XP settings, etc. Unless you clone your old drive to your new one - there are Apps out there that can do that, but I don't think it is really worth it.
03-09-2003, 09:05 PM
Linkton

You don't really have to spend that much money on a drive. Check out Pricewatch.com, its the only place i go to buy computer equipment. Healimonster, you said you where looking for something at about 100 bucks? Pricewatch has a link to a site that is selling a 100 MB EIDE hard drive for $99.79, including shipping!

O man, I just realized that I sound like a commercial. :D O well, go to pricewatch anyway, it's a great computer component price search engine.
03-09-2003, 09:29 PM
healimonster

Thanks for the help with this guys.

what is the difference between EIDE and SCSI. I would assume that I probably can only use 1 of them.

And whats the deal with USB HDs? Do they suck, or take longer to readfrom or write to?

they appear to be cheaper.
03-09-2003, 09:30 PM
zapjb

My suggestions: stay away from IBM & Fujitsu (groans, I got both), either Seagate or WD I reccomend. Also most HDD these days only have a 1yr warr. look harder & you can still find 3yr warr.
03-09-2003, 10:18 PM
Lamsey

USB HDDs are indeed pretty slow.

EIDE is cheaper and more supportable than SCSI, but is slower. SCSI is only really useful for servers - it needs a special adapter which isn't standard on most modern desktop motherboards.

Seagate and Western Digital are indeed the best ones to go for.

Also watch the 'rpm' (revolutions per minute) rating - a 7200rpm HDD is better than one at 5,400 rpm.
03-09-2003, 10:24 PM
Linkton

5400 RPM hard drives are cheaper than 7200's for obvious reasons. I bought a Western Digital 40 GB 5400 HD and I've been happy with it for quite some time now, even though it's not the fastest/coolest/bestest.

Just remember, you don't need to spend 100% more money to get 10% more product. (Unfair percentages in this example, but true nonetheless)
03-09-2003, 10:29 PM
Lamsey

The faster the hard drive --> the faster the virtual memory --> the faster the overall performance of the computer, especially under high loads.

Go with a faster HDD if you can, they're not much more expensive.
03-10-2003, 12:34 AM
Schmiggy_JK23

Bah!

The new IBM Deskstar models, are l337. (awesome). The 180GXP, 180gb, comes with a 3 year warranty! Few manufactures give such great warranties for such a big and fast drive.

I got mine for 180 bucks, brand new OEM on ebay. Thats $1 a gigabyte, great deal!

And its super fast, as it has SCSI parts, allowing for tag and seek, which also speeds up the drive. It has the 8mb cache, and 7200rpms that is the standard now in high end drives.

Check it out, the retail online for about $230, I got lucky, and found one late one night on ebay, for the $180.
03-11-2003, 05:32 PM
Supernatural

Capacity if far more important than that RPM/SCSI crap. There is virtually no noticeable speed advantages of 7200 over 5400 or even 15,000 over 5400 for that matter. Countless benchmarks have dismissed the myth behind the high-speed drives. Just try to get the biggest drive you can afford. That's what 's important.
03-15-2003, 07:56 AM
Schmiggy_JK23

of course capacitys important. But if you game, you want a faster hard drive. Fast drive means faster game loads, map changes, etc.
03-15-2003, 04:13 PM
healimonster

I bought a Western Digital 80gig HD 7200 RPM OEM drive.

For 75 dollars.

It will probably show up in a month. I will let you know how it goes.