Buying a hard drive
Most desktop PC cases have at least two, and sometimes multiple internal drive bays locations where you can mount extra hard drives. Some of the smaller form factor computer cases don't have room for additional hard drives, so you won't be able to use an old and new drive in the same computer case. In these cases external hard drives are the best option.
Interface Do you need SATA or PATA? Almost all new computers in the last 3 years use sata connectors. Older machines might require Pata connectors. If your machine requires PATA, it might be worth investing in a computer. There is no point in spending money on old technology if you are never going to get ahead with the times.
Capacity Typical hard drives are about 250GB but, they can go up to 3 TB. With the every changing times more people are saving videos, pictures and music on hard drives that take up a lot of space. 2 TB might seem like plenty but with new HD recording videos on smart phones, etc. a seemingly large hard drive can fill up quick.
RPM Stands for rotation per minute. The best is 15,000 rpm (Western Digital VelociRaptor hard drives). When purchasing you should consider buying a hard drive with a fast rotational speed of 7,200 rpm or higher. You should expect to spend less for a slower 5,400-rpm hard drive. The newest technology is SSD (solid state hard drive). These have no moving parts and much faster at transfer speeds. Windows 7 if configured properly can boot up in under 15 seconds.
Seek Time You should look for an average seek time of fewer than 4.17 milliseconds (ms), and a data transfer rate of at least 1030 megabytes (MB) per second. The actual sustained speed of the drive will be less than the maximum "burst" speed.
Buffer 8MB or better: When a system requests data, a hard drive will not only fetch what is requested, but it will also load its buffer memory with extra information that the processor is likely to ask for next. While a 2MB buffer is good, that's plenty of room to keep the data flowing, I found that drives with 8MB performed are best.
Transfer Speeds:
Internal Hard Drives
Parallel ATA 33, 66, 100, 133MB/s
Serial ATA 150-300MB/s
SCSI 33-640MB/s
External Hard Drives
Serial ATA 150-300MB/s
USB 12Mbps up to 480Mbps
Firewire 400Mbps up to 800Mbps
SCSI 33-640MB/s
External Hard Drives. External drives great if you need to lock up important data or you need to transport a lot of data to another PC. Note external hard drives cost quite a bit more than internal drives and usually connected a USB 2.0 interface.
Interface Do you need SATA or PATA? Almost all new computers in the last 3 years use sata connectors. Older machines might require Pata connectors. If your machine requires PATA, it might be worth investing in a computer. There is no point in spending money on old technology if you are never going to get ahead with the times.
Capacity Typical hard drives are about 250GB but, they can go up to 3 TB. With the every changing times more people are saving videos, pictures and music on hard drives that take up a lot of space. 2 TB might seem like plenty but with new HD recording videos on smart phones, etc. a seemingly large hard drive can fill up quick.
RPM Stands for rotation per minute. The best is 15,000 rpm (Western Digital VelociRaptor hard drives). When purchasing you should consider buying a hard drive with a fast rotational speed of 7,200 rpm or higher. You should expect to spend less for a slower 5,400-rpm hard drive. The newest technology is SSD (solid state hard drive). These have no moving parts and much faster at transfer speeds. Windows 7 if configured properly can boot up in under 15 seconds.
Seek Time You should look for an average seek time of fewer than 4.17 milliseconds (ms), and a data transfer rate of at least 1030 megabytes (MB) per second. The actual sustained speed of the drive will be less than the maximum "burst" speed.
Buffer 8MB or better: When a system requests data, a hard drive will not only fetch what is requested, but it will also load its buffer memory with extra information that the processor is likely to ask for next. While a 2MB buffer is good, that's plenty of room to keep the data flowing, I found that drives with 8MB performed are best.
Transfer Speeds:
Internal Hard Drives
Parallel ATA 33, 66, 100, 133MB/s
Serial ATA 150-300MB/s
SCSI 33-640MB/s
External Hard Drives
Serial ATA 150-300MB/s
USB 12Mbps up to 480Mbps
Firewire 400Mbps up to 800Mbps
SCSI 33-640MB/s
External Hard Drives. External drives great if you need to lock up important data or you need to transport a lot of data to another PC. Note external hard drives cost quite a bit more than internal drives and usually connected a USB 2.0 interface.
