Need a new hard drive, worried about compatability

Kratochvil88

Solid State Member
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6
I read the guide on posting a new thread, but for now I am just copying this from some other useless forum. If more info is needed I can provide it but right this second I'm in a bit of a time crunch. Thanks ahead of time for any help.

Not looking for anything special, just a solid reliable hard-drive. Am not going to need a ridiculous amount of storage, 500 GBs should be fine. My system is kind-of old (like 4 years).

My SATA connections on my motherboard box (built it myself...somehow) say it has SATA 1. Is that the same thing as SATA 1.5 gb/s? My motherboard is an MSI K8N Neo4 is that helps.

I read that regardless of the speed of the new SATA drive I get, it should be compatible. My question is, since I have the old SATA connection, is it worth spending a bit more money to get a drive with more cache and RPMs, or won't it matter because my SATA is the older version.

I am looking at a few drives on newegg. I guess the basic question is, will there be a big difference between these drives on my system? And will they for sure be compatible? Sorry for the noob questions...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136496

vs.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136161


Now I know the 2nd one has 1/4 of the storage, but I am wondering more about the cache and stuff. I guess any help at all would be appreciated, hell, just tell me what to buy.

And those drives were just the first ones I found,not like the only 2 I would consider. Don't really want to spend much, certainly nothing over $100. Thanks guys.
 
You rarely run into the SATA cap on even the new generation platter based hard drives - they come close, but SATA 1 is still very viable, and yes, it's backwards compatible across all editions of SATA.

When it comes to drives, bulking up on cache is never a bad idea, and spindle speed isn't too important in this age of high aureal densities. 500+ GB drives are 7200 RPM are plenty fast. I actually just installed a new 640GB in my sister's PC last night, and it doubled her hard drive performance from the old 250 IDE drive she had in there. Her average reads went from 41 MB/sec to well over 80 MB/sec, so a very nice upgrade.

I'm not sure what is going on with your links, I've never had problems with them on this forum before, but they are linking exactly how they are posted here...

That being said, Here are a couple of recommendations I have, based on my experiences with drives:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136320

I have this same drive in my desktop system, it's been a solid performer.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152244

750GB seems to be a sweet spot as well:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148445

Those are my top picks. Hope that helps out. :)
 
Sorry about the links, it's because I copied and pasted them from a post in a different forum. Thanks for the advice man.
 
oh okies. :)

No problem. If those are too rich for you capacity wise, just scale down the size a bit, stick with SATA and 32MB cache if you can, though there's nothing wrong with going with a 16MB cache, especially for an older computer.
 
I think the 500 GB caviar one that you linked is perfect, plus it's only 70 bucks with free shipping. I am gonna take 1 last crack at seeing if I can get my old HD to work (mess with the connections, make sure everything looks right) before buying the new drive.

A few other dumb questions though. It will be fine if I just use the cord from my old hard-drive right (actually the SATA cord came with the motherboard)?

And also, I will be able to use my same copy of windows XP right? I bought XP home and registered it when I had the old drive, that isn't going to preclude me from using it on the new drive is it?
 
Just reinstall to the new HDD and type your serial number in, if it does not work call microsoft and tell them that you are reinstalling to a new HDD and they will give you the right serial number.No questions asked.
 
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