How to choose a new hard drive for your computer
If you are running out of space on your computer or find that programs
load a little slow, or that big files take a long time to open, it may
be time for a new hard drive.
Making a more careful decision about the hard drive can mean a much
longer working life for the hard drive. Better reliability, allowing
the hard drive to run for many years without mechanical failures or
the worst of all, losing your precious data to errors on the drive.
Obviously the main thing that people think about when getting a new
drive is size. Although a 400GB drive sounds great, there are very few
people who actually use this much space. Only if you save DVD movies
to your hard drive, or if you do serious amounts of video editing will
you need this much space. The smallest size drives available today are
about 40GB and will suffice for all your needs. However if you want
the latest technologies, bigger sizes are inevitable.
Over the years the speed at which hard drives work has increased. One
of the main technologies to improve is the connection between the hard
drive and the rest of the computer. It passes the information back and
forth from the hard drive, the faster it is the faster information can
be passed, and so speeding up the programs you use and the files you use.
There are 2 main varieties for this connection:
The old IDE kind, which comes in 4 flavors: ATA33, ATA66, ATA100 and
ATA133, each number corresponding to the transfer rate in MB/s, the
bigger the faster. This type is pretty standard. If your computer is
older, you may only be able to use this kind, and depending how old
will determine which speed.
SATA is a newer kind. It uses a different cable and allows much faster
information transfer. The slower kind is 150MB/s and the faster is
300MB/s, so they are much faster than IDE.
A newer technology called Native Command Queuing (NCQ) speeds up how
fast things are found and done on the hard drive. Just briefly, it
orders the read and write commands given to it in such as way as to
get the tasks done quicker and with less delay.
Drives are most often separated by their size and this is a big factor
in the pricing of a drive. The smallest drives today are around 40GB,
you can get a little smaller, but no point really. The largest of
400GB will be enough for a really long time.
The other thing that affects pricing is the rotation speed, which is
the speed at which the big disk spins inside the disk drive. The
faster it spins the faster information gets found. Look for rotation
speeds of 7200RPM as standard and 10000 for the fast end.
With all of this it may be hard to decide, but here are my suggestions.
For a main drive, which has your Windows and programs on it, go for
something faster, but bear in mind that even for me my ATA66 drive is
fast enough for my uses. But a faster one will speed up how fast your
programs go. It might be a good idea just to go for one big, fast drive.
Brand name drives are often worth getting, as manufacturers like
Seagate, Maxtor and Western Digital are well known for long lasting
quality products, which will not make any difference in the short term
usually, but will pay off with long life and reliability.
If you want or need two drives the second one can sacrifice speed for
size, as that's what's most often needed for a second drive, which
usually stores all your information.
You should now have enough to make a smart choice in your next hard
drive purchase. A good one can be kept for a very long time and
minimize any hassles in the future.
Peter Stewart is a computer enthusiast, his interest in computers and
focus on practical down to earth advice inspired his two websites.
<a href="http://www.computer-buying-guide.com">
http://www.computer-buying-guide.com</a>- Practical buying tips
<a href="http://www.computer-reviews.net">http://www.computer-reviews.net</a>-
Fair and honest reviews and opinions
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