Purchasing a new Hard Drive - What do I need to know? - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Tamerlain · 09-22-2005, 07:40 PM

Hi people,

I searched the forum for information about buying a new hard drive, but all I came up with were posts about making a whole computer. None of them covered what I was looking for.

I've had the same 20gig HD for a few years now and I've decided I need more space. What I need to know is:

1.) Are Hard Drives generic in that they fit any motherboard, or do I need to buy one specifically for my motherboard? (I moved recently and haven't unpacked the motherboard box, so I don't have the specs handy)

2.) What does cache mean? I've looked at numerous hard drives and they all have different cache numbers (from 2mb to 8mb) and I don't what they mean.

3.) Does RPM really make that much of a difference? It seems that the only two options are 7200 and 10,000. I'm not in so much of a hurry that I need my data accessed thousandths of a second faster - is there anything else RPM does that should factor into my decision?

Thanks in advance for the help.

-Tamerlain

Martian · 09-22-2005, 08:18 PM

Hard drives are either IDE or SATA. The two don't work with each other, but which one you have is very obvious. IDE uses a flat ribbon cable, whereas SATA uses a much smaller one. If your drive is a couple years old make sure you get IDE (aka Parallel ATA, as opposed to Serial ATA), as that will be what it is.

Cache has a large effect on performance. It affects your transfer rates, whereas RPM affects seek times. I'd rather have a drive with a lower RPM and higher cache. If you want jaw dropping performance.. well, you're not going to get it from PATA. But you can get reasonably close with a 7200 RPM 8mb cache drive. 10 000 RPM isn't worth the benefits in performance and in my experience tends to be unreliable, motors seem to burn out on those frighteningly often.

In terms of brands, everyone has a different answer, but I've had really good experiences from Maxtor and Seagate and tend to use Maxtor in any computer I put together. Western Digital tends to suffer from reliability issues and there aren't really any other brands worth mentioning. But brands are a highly subjective thing in this as anything else, so pick what you prefer. Or wahts' cheapest, or what's most expensive. Whatever works for you.

Lasereth · 09-22-2005, 09:44 PM

Just thought I'd pop in and agree with Martian that a 7200 RPM 8 MB cache hard drive is best. I also recommend Maxtor and Seagate.

-Lasereth

SiN · 09-23-2005, 02:19 PM

duuude. 20 gigs. i'd say you need more space, indeed

as said above, hd brands are subjective.

buuuuut, i'm not a fan of maxtor, really. they're cheap, but tend to have problems. in my personal experience, as well as i used to build computers for a living, maxtors were more likely to have probs.

seagate and WD are both good, imo.

but, for one good hdd, (especially for the system disk, one that will get a lot of action) I recommend a Samsung SpinPoint.

Tamerlain · 09-23-2005, 04:47 PM

Quote:

In terms of brands, everyone has a different answer...

That's what I figured. I thought I would just ask about technical specifications instead of getting a dozen different people telling me which brand to buy. Thanks for giving me a few brands to look at though, that's better than having to sift through a dozen.

Thanks again for the help everyone.

-Tamerlain

oiekeooiyw · 09-23-2005, 07:01 PM

Newegg has some 7200 RPM WD and Maxtor 16MB cache drives from 250-300GB for under $130 right now

yotta · 09-23-2005, 10:24 PM

Get a seagate drive. They are the only ones that offer a 5 year warrenty, and thier drives are very high quality.

bacon_masta · 09-24-2005, 06:39 AM

I have to recommend Maxtor or Seagate, as far as my preference goes. If you decided to go for something a little cheaper, just read the reviews, and perhaps check out http://consumerreports.com. And this is just my personal opinion, but avoid Toshiba. I've only had 2 of their drives, but both had head crashes after less than 2 years. Good luck!

Redjake · 09-24-2005, 10:06 AM

I have 3 Maxtor drives and so far they are the best I've ever had. Make sure to get an 8 MB cache, 7200 RPM drive. You'll probably need an IDE drive. In fact, I gaurantee it.

macmanmike6100 · 09-24-2005, 09:25 PM

another vote for seagate; those drives are worth the small premium.

also, i, too, recommend avoiding the 10k RPM, especially since you don't sound like a person who needs that kind of speed, anyway. good luck and let us know what you go with!

santafe5000 · 09-26-2005, 05:39 PM

Dowload this little program(FREE) and it will tell you everything about your computer and it's Guts. Give a lot of information about who made what and the specs. for the components. Very useful if you need to replace something and need to match what you have in there. Also has a temp sensor for the CPU.

Duh, guess you do need a link.

http://www.lavalys.hu/products/overv...?pid=1&lang=en

OneEye · 09-26-2005, 07:23 PM

I've had 2 newer maxtor drives fail in the last 2 weeks. I think their quality has gone way downhill lately.

denim · 09-26-2005, 09:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yotta

Get a seagate drive. They are the only ones that offer a 5 year warrenty, and thier drives are very high quality.

Until they die. Then you swear at them, instead of by them.

I just bought a WD a few weeks ago (this one, I think). It has a 3 year warranty. Given that the previous drive, also a WD, died shortly after the warranty did, that's how long I figure it'll work.

I second the motion toward http://www.newegg.com as well. See these for instance. Ignore the ones that say they're SCSI. Wish I'd thought of this before, but I forgot Newegg entirely.

For a few bucks more, two more years of warranty. I would have jumped on that. I forgot Newegg, and I'll probably pay for that in a few years.

xepherys · 09-28-2005, 11:28 AM

I'm going to answer these blindly, before reading other responses. Some info may repeat, some may not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tamerlain

1.) Are Hard Drives generic in that they fit any motherboard, or do I need to buy one specifically for my motherboard? (I moved recently and haven't unpacked the motherboard box, so I don't have the specs handy)

There are three common types of internal hard drives, Serial ATA (SATA) which are newer, Parallel ATA (PATA) or IDE/EIDE which are the most common, and even newer boards almost always support them, and SCSI which are less common unless you have a Mac, and old Mac-clone or a business system. If your board does, in fact, support SATA, I would recommend going that route. Make sure that the drive has a standard 4-pin Molex power connector or, if not, that you buy an adapter, as only really new power supplies have the proper connector for SATA power.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tamerlain

2.) What does cache mean? I've looked at numerous hard drives and they all have different cache numbers (from 2mb to 8mb) and I don't what they mean.

Cache is an internal buffering system within the hard drive. Larger cache allows for faster access (most during moves and data writes, but also simple reads to an extent) to larger files. Smaller files see very little, if any, difference with higher cache values. If you do a lot of 3D gaming, graphics work, music editing or otherwise work with large files, then go with 8MB or 16MB cache. Otherwise, cache will have little value to you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tamerlain

3.) Does RPM really make that much of a difference? It seems that the only two options are 7200 and 10,000. I'm not in so much of a hurry that I need my data accessed thousandths of a second faster - is there anything else RPM does that should factor into my decision?

7,200RPM is ample for most people unless, again, you do a lot of graphics or sound editing (even 3D gaming works great with 7,200RPM). 7,200 is more or less the common speed point these days. 5,400s exist, though mostly for laptop drives these days. Stay away from them unless ALL you do is office type work. 10,000RPM drives are great, but for the added expense and limited size right now, generally not worth it unless speed is essential.

Additional things to note:

1) Seek time is fairly important, and a good measure of your drives ability to perform. Look for a seek time of 8s to 9s (or lower).

2) Purchase at NewEgg (www.newegg.com). They almost always have the best price, a good selection and ship product quickly. I think a lot of ppl here at the TFP shop there.

3) Brand is important, but only in keeping away from REALLY crappy drives. Major brands (Western Digital, Maxtor, Hitachi, Seagate) are all good, but quality can vary model to model. I LOVE Hitachi Deskstar's, and still have one of the first IBM Deskstar drives for PATA. However, they had some issues with a few drives for about a year which earned them the nickname "Deathstar" drives due to their high failure rate. Nowadays, they are again some of the best drives. Do your research and look at reviews. Look for a good warranty (at least 2 years... some are up to 5). Remember though that a warranty does not cover data recovery. You'll get a new drive, but with none of your old data.

Tamerlain · 09-28-2005, 11:52 AM

Thanks for the information everyone. I still haven't decided what I'm going to get, but I know what to look for now.

I checked out Newegg.com but they don't ship to Canada. Tigerdirect.com has a .ca affilliate, so I'll probably order from there.

santafe5000, thanks for that link - that's a neat program.

-Tamerlain

pacaveli · 10-05-2005, 05:51 PM

i was thinking of adding a hard drive to my older computer as well, i was wondering do i need to format it, if i keep my old HD or, will it just be formated with the other one?

spindles · 10-05-2005, 06:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pacaveli

i was thinking of adding a hard drive to my older computer as well, i was wondering do i need to format it, if i keep my old HD or, will it just be formated with the other one?

You will need to format it, either way. If you are adding it to an existing HD, (at least in Windows), you will need to assign it a different drive letter (e.g. your main drive is C, your CD is probably D, the new drive will be E).

pacaveli · 10-05-2005, 06:54 PM

what does formating entail?

SiN · 10-05-2005, 07:05 PM

as long as it's not your system disk, it's really easy, you can do it within windows.

go to 'my computer' , right-click the drive, and select 'format'.

the default options should be ok - you can choose your own volume label, and choose quick format.

pacaveli · 10-06-2005, 11:02 AM

thanx for the info sin, if it's that easy and i need the extra space, i don't see why i wouldn't do it

KnifeMissile · 10-06-2005, 02:06 PM

Okay, I've got some technical questions for the group concerning hard drives...

How does the drive cache help? I mean, a cache is only helpful with repeated use of data. So, if you were to access the same file over and over again, then the cache can come in handy. Otherwise, you should see no performance gain. That's how caches work, right? Secondly, the OS, itself, caches file IO and a lot more than a mere 8 MB! So, what's the point of the hard drive cache at all?

While I can see how the disc's RPMs can help seek times a little bit, it seems to me that it would help with data throughput a lot more. I mean, the RPMs don't help with the radial speed of the disc head at all, which is obviously integral to seek times. It depends on how the data is packed onto the disc, whether it be most dense radially or circumferencially. Either way, one would imagine that it's the throughput where it helps the most. Do RPMs really help seek times?

So, if anyone can answer these questions intelligently, I'd love to be enlightened! Thanks...

xepherys · 10-06-2005, 02:21 PM

HD cache can be used where the IDE buffer on your system gets tangled up. When you are accessing larger files, there are times when the data transfer path of your system gets clogged. This can cause a bouncing of your HDD spinning faster and slower and degrades overall performance. This is especially true with PATA (not sure how it effects SATA) if multiple drives on the same channel are being used. The performance gain is often minimal, but the gain grows as the cache gets larger.

As for RPMs/seek time... well, the bottleneck, again, is the ATA/IDE pathway, not the drive itself (past 7,200 RPMs that is). Seek time increases greatly with higher platter speeds and is really limited primarily BY rotational speed. Throughput has many other limitations. This faster seek time is important for "speed critical" applications like large databases or public web sites (like /.) that get a lot of hits.

Hardknock · 10-06-2005, 11:27 PM

I gotta give props to Seagate as well. I bought a 7200RPM 8MB 200GB drive a year ago and it's working fine. No probs at all.

WillyPete · 10-07-2005, 02:58 AM

This might deserve its own thread but for those of you moving to a new drive will save a LOT of headaches using a free tool from Acronis called Easy Migrate.

I got a copy free on the cover of a pc world magazine. You can also download the free trial from www.acronis.com - it's worth the registration.

I recently moved my 80 gb to a 200gb sata disk and i didn't even need to format the disk, the software did both that and the partitioning.
The hard part will be the installation and setting up the disk so that the bios and Windows recognising it.

09-22-2005, 07:40 PM	#1 (permalink)
Tamerlain Insane Location: Victoria	Purchasing a new Hard Drive - What do I need to know? Hi people, I searched the forum for information about buying a new hard drive, but all I came up with were posts about making a whole computer. None of them covered what I was looking for. I've had the same 20gig HD for a few years now and I've decided I need more space. What I need to know is: 1.) Are Hard Drives generic in that they fit any motherboard, or do I need to buy one specifically for my motherboard? (I moved recently and haven't unpacked the motherboard box, so I don't have the specs handy) 2.) What does cache mean? I've looked at numerous hard drives and they all have different cache numbers (from 2mb to 8mb) and I don't what they mean. 3.) Does RPM really make that much of a difference? It seems that the only two options are 7200 and 10,000. I'm not in so much of a hurry that I need my data accessed thousandths of a second faster - is there anything else RPM does that should factor into my decision? Thanks in advance for the help. -Tamerlain

09-22-2005, 08:18 PM	#2 (permalink)
Martian Young Crumudgeon Location: Canada	Hard drives are either IDE or SATA. The two don't work with each other, but which one you have is very obvious. IDE uses a flat ribbon cable, whereas SATA uses a much smaller one. If your drive is a couple years old make sure you get IDE (aka Parallel ATA, as opposed to Serial ATA), as that will be what it is. Cache has a large effect on performance. It affects your transfer rates, whereas RPM affects seek times. I'd rather have a drive with a lower RPM and higher cache. If you want jaw dropping performance.. well, you're not going to get it from PATA. But you can get reasonably close with a 7200 RPM 8mb cache drive. 10 000 RPM isn't worth the benefits in performance and in my experience tends to be unreliable, motors seem to burn out on those frighteningly often. In terms of brands, everyone has a different answer, but I've had really good experiences from Maxtor and Seagate and tend to use Maxtor in any computer I put together. Western Digital tends to suffer from reliability issues and there aren't really any other brands worth mentioning. But brands are a highly subjective thing in this as anything else, so pick what you prefer. Or wahts' cheapest, or what's most expensive. Whatever works for you. __________________ I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said - Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame Last edited by Martian; 09-22-2005 at 11:00 PM..

09-22-2005, 09:44 PM	#3 (permalink)
Lasereth Knight of the Old Republic Location: Winston-Salem, NC	Just thought I'd pop in and agree with Martian that a 7200 RPM 8 MB cache hard drive is best. I also recommend Maxtor and Seagate. -Lasereth __________________ "A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert

09-23-2005, 02:19 PM	#4 (permalink)
SiN strangelove Location: ...more here than there...	duuude. 20 gigs. i'd say you need more space, indeed as said above, hd brands are subjective. buuuuut, i'm not a fan of maxtor, really. they're cheap, but tend to have problems. in my personal experience, as well as i used to build computers for a living, maxtors were more likely to have probs. seagate and WD are both good, imo. but, for one good hdd, (especially for the system disk, one that will get a lot of action) I recommend a Samsung SpinPoint. __________________ - + - ° GiRLie GeeK ° - + - ° 01110010011011110110111101110100001000000110110101100101 Therell be days/When Ill stray/I may appear to be/Constantly out of reach/I give in to sin/Because I like to practise what I preach

09-23-2005, 10:24 PM	#7 (permalink)
yotta Irresponsible	Get a seagate drive. They are the only ones that offer a 5 year warrenty, and thier drives are very high quality. __________________ I am Jack's signature.

09-23-2005, 07:01 PM	#6 (permalink)
oiekeooiyw Insane	Newegg has some 7200 RPM WD and Maxtor 16MB cache drives from 250-300GB for under $130 right now

09-24-2005, 06:39 AM	#8 (permalink)
bacon_masta Psycho Location: i live in the state of denial	I have to recommend Maxtor or Seagate, as far as my preference goes. If you decided to go for something a little cheaper, just read the reviews, and perhaps check out http://consumerreports.com. And this is just my personal opinion, but avoid Toshiba. I've only had 2 of their drives, but both had head crashes after less than 2 years. Good luck!

09-24-2005, 10:06 AM	#9 (permalink)
Redjake I'm a family man - I run a family business. Location: Wilson, NC	I have 3 Maxtor drives and so far they are the best I've ever had. Make sure to get an 8 MB cache, 7200 RPM drive. You'll probably need an IDE drive. In fact, I gaurantee it. __________________ Off the record, on the q.t., and very hush-hush.

09-24-2005, 09:25 PM	#10 (permalink)
macmanmike6100 High Honorary Junkie Location: Tri-state.	another vote for seagate; those drives are worth the small premium. also, i, too, recommend avoiding the 10k RPM, especially since you don't sound like a person who needs that kind of speed, anyway. good luck and let us know what you go with!

09-26-2005, 05:39 PM	#11 (permalink)
santafe5000 EVIL! Location: Southwest of nowhere	Dowload this little program(FREE) and it will tell you everything about your computer and it's Guts. Give a lot of information about who made what and the specs. for the components. Very useful if you need to replace something and need to match what you have in there. Also has a temp sensor for the CPU. Duh, guess you do need a link. http://www.lavalys.hu/products/overv...?pid=1&lang=en __________________ When all else fails, QUIT. Last edited by santafe5000; 09-27-2005 at 10:14 AM..

09-26-2005, 07:23 PM	#12 (permalink)
OneEye Upright	I've had 2 newer maxtor drives fail in the last 2 weeks. I think their quality has gone way downhill lately.

09-28-2005, 11:52 AM	#15 (permalink)
Tamerlain Insane Location: Victoria	Thanks for the information everyone. I still haven't decided what I'm going to get, but I know what to look for now. I checked out Newegg.com but they don't ship to Canada. Tigerdirect.com has a .ca affilliate, so I'll probably order from there. santafe5000, thanks for that link - that's a neat program. -Tamerlain

10-05-2005, 05:51 PM	#16 (permalink)
pacaveli Psycho Location: MD	i was thinking of adding a hard drive to my older computer as well, i was wondering do i need to format it, if i keep my old HD or, will it just be formated with the other one? __________________ Check my blog out. Basically me talking about video games http://gginsights.blogspot.com/

10-05-2005, 06:54 PM	#18 (permalink)
pacaveli Psycho Location: MD	what does formating entail? __________________ Check my blog out. Basically me talking about video games http://gginsights.blogspot.com/

10-05-2005, 07:05 PM	#19 (permalink)
SiN strangelove Location: ...more here than there...	as long as it's not your system disk, it's really easy, you can do it within windows. go to 'my computer' , right-click the drive, and select 'format'. the default options should be ok - you can choose your own volume label, and choose quick format. __________________ - + - ° GiRLie GeeK ° - + - ° 01110010011011110110111101110100001000000110110101100101 Therell be days/When Ill stray/I may appear to be/Constantly out of reach/I give in to sin/Because I like to practise what I preach

10-06-2005, 11:02 AM	#20 (permalink)
pacaveli Psycho Location: MD	thanx for the info sin, if it's that easy and i need the extra space, i don't see why i wouldn't do it __________________ Check my blog out. Basically me talking about video games http://gginsights.blogspot.com/

10-06-2005, 02:06 PM	#21 (permalink)
KnifeMissile Location: Waterloo, Ontario	Okay, I've got some technical questions for the group concerning hard drives... How does the drive cache help? I mean, a cache is only helpful with repeated use of data. So, if you were to access the same file over and over again, then the cache can come in handy. Otherwise, you should see no performance gain. That's how caches work, right? Secondly, the OS, itself, caches file IO and a lot more than a mere 8 MB! So, what's the point of the hard drive cache at all? While I can see how the disc's RPMs can help seek times a little bit, it seems to me that it would help with data throughput a lot more. I mean, the RPMs don't help with the radial speed of the disc head at all, which is obviously integral to seek times. It depends on how the data is packed onto the disc, whether it be most dense radially or circumferencially. Either way, one would imagine that it's the throughput where it helps the most. Do RPMs really help seek times? So, if anyone can answer these questions intelligently, I'd love to be enlightened! Thanks...

10-06-2005, 02:21 PM	#22 (permalink)
xepherys <3 TFP Location: 17TLH2445607250	HD cache can be used where the IDE buffer on your system gets tangled up. When you are accessing larger files, there are times when the data transfer path of your system gets clogged. This can cause a bouncing of your HDD spinning faster and slower and degrades overall performance. This is especially true with PATA (not sure how it effects SATA) if multiple drives on the same channel are being used. The performance gain is often minimal, but the gain grows as the cache gets larger. As for RPMs/seek time... well, the bottleneck, again, is the ATA/IDE pathway, not the drive itself (past 7,200 RPMs that is). Seek time increases greatly with higher platter speeds and is really limited primarily BY rotational speed. Throughput has many other limitations. This faster seek time is important for "speed critical" applications like large databases or public web sites (like /.) that get a lot of hits.

10-06-2005, 11:27 PM	#23 (permalink)
Hardknock Republican slayer Location: WA	I gotta give props to Seagate as well. I bought a 7200RPM 8MB 200GB drive a year ago and it's working fine. No probs at all.

10-07-2005, 02:58 AM	#24 (permalink)
WillyPete Addict	This might deserve its own thread but for those of you moving to a new drive will save a LOT of headaches using a free tool from Acronis called Easy Migrate. I got a copy free on the cover of a pc world magazine. You can also download the free trial from www.acronis.com - it's worth the registration. I recently moved my 80 gb to a 200gb sata disk and i didn't even need to format the disk, the software did both that and the partitioning. The hard part will be the installation and setting up the disk so that the bios and Windows recognising it.