Newbie Hd Upgrade Question

[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...

[geprobert]

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.

[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. O well, go to pricewatch anyway, it's a great computer component price search engine.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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)

[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.

[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.

[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.