Who knows about different Hard Drives?

[ep2002]

Hi everyone,

How's it going?

I have to purchase a new HD that will allow me to upgrade with it in the future, potentially to a 64 bit system. I need to know the following:

1. Which is the best one to get?

2. Which one has the best disk copying software?

3. Can one manufacturers disk copying software be used on another manufacturers HD?

Thanks so much & have a great day!


Michelle

 

[Kage]

Hey Michelle, welcome to the forums first of all, and you seem a tad bit confused

Hard drives will work on any system, 64bit or not.

All you may have to do is format the hard drive (delete everything off it) and then install Windows XP again after upgrading since the Windows setup will think its a new PC, and it doesn't like this, so its not the hard drives fault.

The type of hard drive I feel most comfortable with, and is the easiest one to install is a standard IDE drive, and this just plugs in and installs straight away when asked, rather than one called a SATA drive which needs drivers before installing Windows, etc, so i'd avoid it for someone who might have trouble installing one.

There are no performance increases from IDE to SATA anyway, so yeah, stick with IDE

1) The best one to get:

Thats a rather hard question as there a few good companies, but aim for one with as much space as you need (usually 60gb up now), and one with a 7200 revolutions per minute spinning speed which will make the hard drive faster, but all come with that speed as standard now. You definetly won't need one with a spinning speed of 10,000RPM, and these are really expensive at the moment.

2) None come with disk copying software, as you can just buy them, like Nero. These tend to come with DVD recordable drives.
Windows XP too, actually comes with its own basic one that'll copy a disc to a CD-Recordable disc.

3) If your talking about the hard drives that come with Dell and other companies that allow you to go back to what you had on your computer originally if things fail, these do not come as standard with hard drives you buy from the shops, and again, will have to be installed afterwards after buying specialist software.

This isn't a problem though, so don't worry, as this software is easily gotten hold of to backup your hard drive. This should be done regularily anyway.

you could always get a DVD copier, and back up your hard drive using that, if your scared of losing valuable data, and thats always best to do, or get hold of a USB device to store the needed data which is another good way of backing up.

I hope this helps.

 

[Opteronix]

Hey Michelle, welcome to the forums first of all, and you seem a tad bit confused

Hard drives will work on any system, 64bit or not.

All you may have to do is format the hard drive (delete everything off it) and then install Windows XP again after upgrading since the Windows setup will think its a new PC, and it doesn't like this, so its not the hard drives fault.

The type of hard drive I feel most comfortable with, and is the easiest one to install is a standard IDE drive, and this just plugs in and installs straight away when asked, rather than one called a SATA drive which needs drivers before installing Windows, etc, so i'd avoid it for someone who might have trouble installing one.

There are no performance increases from IDE to SATA anyway, so yeah, stick with IDE

1) The best one to get:

Thats a rather hard question as there a few good companies, but aim for one with as much space as you need (usually 60gb up now), and one with a 7200 revolutions per minute spinning speed which will make the hard drive faster, but all come with that speed as standard now. You definetly won't need one with a spinning speed of 10,000RPM, and these are really expensive at the moment.

2) None come with disk copying software, as you can just buy them, like Nero. These tend to come with DVD recordable drives.
Windows XP too, actually comes with its own basic one that'll copy a disc to a CD-Recordable disc.

3) If your talking about the hard drives that come with Dell and other companies that allow you to go back to what you had on your computer originally if things fail, these do not come as standard with hard drives you buy from the shops, and again, will have to be installed afterwards after buying specialist software.

This isn't a problem though, so don't worry, as this software is easily gotten hold of to backup your hard drive. This should be done regularily anyway.

you could always get a DVD copier, and back up your hard drive using that, if your scared of losing valuable data, and thats always best to do, or get hold of a USB device to store the needed data which is another good way of backing up.

I hope this helps.

Very well put.. young grasshopper! Now wax my truck! ROFL! No, really, that was EXCELLENT Kage. Wow.. I haven't been on in a few days... because of this forum having some mean people, but I am here to help again... I think... Once again though, VERY IMPRESSIVE.

 

[Kage]

Thanks alot

 

[ep2002]

Thanks Kage. I was told that some HDs come with disk copying software. Disk, meaning from one HD to another.

I want to just move everything over. Can I do that with Windows too, or do I have to install windows from scratch & then move everything over?

I actually have Nero, as I just got a recordable DVD player recently.

So that will do what I need?

As for #3, I was once again talking about moving programs & data to the new HD.

Opteronix - glad you didn't let mean people control you & you might want to darken your font colour. I could barely read what you wrote.

Thanks guys


Michelle

 

[Kage]

Hey again.

Thats fine, and any hard drive will do that, so don't worry.

If you get two hard drives, you'd simply place one hard drive as Master (the one you'd install Windows on) and then get another one to fit as Slave
(just means either plugging it in a certain way using the supplied IDE cable, or by changing the jumper at the back of the hard drive to the Slave positon and plugging it in)

THE IDE CABLE:

For example, they'd be a connection at the top of the lead, one in the middle, and one at the bottom, the one in the middle would be for the Slave drive and when plugged into the IDE slot in the motherboard using the bottom connector, that drive would automatically become the slave of the top one.

You can then run windows on the Master one as Drive C for example (standard) and the Slave drive (might be Drive D) will be able to be copied to and from no problems as a means of backing up.

Though, I'd back up to that DVD copier once in a while, as you should never trust hard drives. They can be unreliable at times...

As for his font colour, it goes grey like that if you make a quote of someone else, otherwise its black like this.

I hope this helps

 

[d_source]

KAGE, i tend to disagree about ur statement that theres no difference b/w IDE an SATA. I have seen a vast improvement in my speed when i moved from one technology to the other. I originally had 1x120gb WD hard drive and 1x160GB WD Sata HDD. They both died in an accident. I am now running on 2x200GB SATA II WD HDD's and the speed difference is very noticeable. Not to mention the wires are way smaller allowing for better cooling. Plus, if you look in the right spots, SATA II HDD's are actually cheaper than older IDE tech drives. Just make sure ur mobo has the connections for it.

 

[Kage]

Ahaha, I didn't realise SATA 2 has been released.

I was talking about SATA you see, and there is no real speed difference with these, at least, not very noticable. SATA 2 must be a bit different.

I think my motherboard only supports SATA, and its rather new... (ABIT AV8)

 

[d_source]

any board that supports SATA also supports SATA II...it doesnt say anywhere on my mobo that it supports SATA II, but it works just great.

 

[ep2002]

Kage I think you are misunderstanding.

While I might want to keep both HDs, the first one is my current HD which although not a large HD, was good enough, but unfortunately the person who set it up made C too small & there's no way to increase the partition without screwing anything up, so I just said I'll get a new HD & copy everything over.

I can't afford to have problems as my biz is online & I'm already missing sent mail in my OE.

I hope that clears things up that the 2nd HD is not for backing up, but to be used as my primary HD.

Thanks


Michelle