Adding a Harddrive

[BrknFngrs]

Alright, I'm looking to add another harddrive to my desktop computer so I have more room for media centre recordings.

Does it matter what kind of hard drive I add or are they all more or less the same? Also, will I have to purchase any other cables/cords/etc or can I just buy and plug in another drive?

Here are pictures of the inside of my case and also a screenshot of my system menu from windows xp.

http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z274/BrknFngrs/DSCN0470.jpg
http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z274/BrknFngrs/DSCN0469.jpg
http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z274/BrknFngrs/DSCN0468.jpg
http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z274/BrknFngrs/Specs.jpg

[Mibz]

All you'll need to buy is a hard drive and a SATA cable.

[BrknFngrs]

Alright, sounds good. Thanks for the info.

[em2ab]

Any SATA hard drive is going to come with a SATA cable. Plus you should have some from when you bought your motherboard.

But regardless, the different things you can look for in a hard drive are as follows:

2.5 inch / 3.5 inch - The smaller are laptop drives, the larger are desktop drives. You'd have to be an idiot to get them mixed up but there is a difference so I listed it. They're very noticeably different sizes.

SATA / IDE - I don't even think you can buy IDE anymore but if you find one, it's slower and not worth it. Pick up something that's SATA II compatible which all of them will be.

RPM - A good fast drive will be 10000 RPM, standard now is 7200 which is fine. I have one that's 5400 and don't mind it.

I think that's pretty much it if I remember correctly, just make sure you have warranty because there's only 2 kinds of people.....those that do regular backups and those that have never had a hard drive fail. Because you will have one fail at some point.

[BrknFngrs]

Alright, well I'd say it's safe to assume that I have a 3.5" drive so I was browsing the memory express site and this drive seems fairly reasonable for ~$65.

SEAGATE 500GB Barracuda 7200.11 SATA II w/ NCQ, 32MB Cache

Thoughts?

[em2ab]

Seagate? Good.
Half Terrabyte? Good.
7200 RPM? Good.
SATA II? Good.
32 megabit cache? Never seen it above 8 (I'm old school I guess) so good.

Might even get 2 of them myself! Are they on sale?

[BrknFngrs]

Doesn't have them listed as being on sale, seems like a regular price :dunno:

[em2ab]

It's cool, last time I bought a drive they were $1 per megabyte so I'm a little out dated! :poosie:

[natejj]

Thats a good price for a good hard drive.

[rx7boi]

For 1/2 TB, that's a wicked price.

Built myself a 1TB ext HDD from Mem-Ex and it cost $160 for the drive itself.

You will need to format your new drive as well, so maybe consider as to whether or not you would like to have a FAT32 or NTFS file system.

[hampstor]

what a rat's nest as far as cabling goes...

Seagate hard drives from memx (or anyone that sells an OEM drive) do not come with any cables. You will need an SATA cable - but you probably have one in the motherboard box.

Additionally, Seagate SATA drives use the SATA power connector so you have to make sure you have one of those attached to your power supply, or using an adapter. If you need an adapter check your motherboard box to see if has one in it fist before you buy one.

Additionally, Seagate OEM consumer drives will carry a 3 year warranty :
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/warranty_&_returns_assistance/oem_warranty_statements/

If you've got those 2 cables and then you're good to go. That Seagate 500GB is a good price as well!

[eblend]

Originally posted by hampstor
what a rat's nest as far as cabling goes...

Additionally, Seagate SATA drives use the SATA power connector so you have to make sure you have one of those attached to your power supply\.
I

the sata power connector is visible in the picture, so your good to go, just get a drive and a sata cable, plug it in and then in windows Right click on my computer, go to manage and under Disk management you will see your new drive which you will have to partition and format.

[BrknFngrs]

So I went and picked up the drive, I have both the power and the SATA cable plugged in and now I realize that the rubber grommets between the harddrive and the case (that the screws go through, visible in the picture above) make my assortment of random case screws too short.

I guess I just have to go back to memory express and buy longer case screws then hey? Should I ask for anything in particular or will saying I need "long" case screws be sufficient? (ie: I don't want to walk in and look like a retard lol)


Originally posted by hampstor
what a rat's nest as far as cabling goes...


I agree on the rat's nest comment. I bought the computer off another member a few years ago and that's just the way it was built I guess.

[Grogador]

take one screw with you

[eblend]

Originally posted by BrknFngrs
So I went and picked up the drive, I have both the power and the SATA cable plugged in and now I realize that the rubber grommets between the harddrive and the case (that the screws go through, visible in the picture above) make my assortment of random case screws too short.

I guess I just have to go back to memory express and buy longer case screws then hey? Should I ask for anything in particular or will saying I need "long" case screws be sufficient? (ie: I don't want to walk in and look like a retard lol)



I agree on the rat's nest comment. I bought the computer off another member a few years ago and that's just the way it was built I guess.

You sure you don't have some at home? Some should have been included with the case I would assume. You could also jack some screws from other hard drive if you want. Don't know if there is any official name for those

[BrknFngrs]

Originally posted by eblend
You sure you don't have some at home? Some should have been included with the case I would assume. You could also jack some screws from other hard drive if you want. Don't know if there is any official name for those

Nah, the guy never provided me any additional screws for the case. I just got back from memory express and it turns out that they don't sell the case screws I need (basically, just a standard case screw but ~double the length)

Anyone know where I could find them?

[natejj]

Duct tape it.

[BrknFngrs]

Originally posted by natejj
Duct tape it.

:rofl: That was going to be my last resort; I was able to hacksaw down some larger screws with the same threads so that part is taken care of.

Any suggestions on which file system I should format the drive as? My current drive is NTFS so unless I come across some significant reason to format it as FAT32 I'll likely go with that.

[eblend]

Originally posted by BrknFngrs


:rofl: That was going to be my last resort; I was able to hacksaw down some larger screws with the same threads so that part is taken care of.

Any suggestions on which file system I should format the drive as? My current drive is NTFS so unless I come across some significant reason to format it as FAT32 I'll likely go with that.

NTFS should be your only choice, unless you want to be stuck in the 90s.

NTFS is the current windows partition setup, FAT32 is shit nowadays (file size restrictions, drive size restictions ect.)

[BrknFngrs]

Originally posted by eblend


NTFS should be your only choice, unless you want to be stuck in the 90s.

NTFS is the current windows partition setup, FAT32 is shit nowadays (file size restrictions, drive size restictions ect.)

Alright cool, I did a bit of reading online and that seemed to be the general opinion most people had so I got it formatting right now.

Since I am using the drive to hold media I didn't think there was any point in making various partitions; the whole drive space is set as a primary partition (being formatted right now). This won't cause any problems in my system since my operating system is set up as a primary partition on my other drive will it? Should I have formatted it as an extension partition?

[bonjoey]

Originally posted by BrknFngrs


Nah, the guy never provided me any additional screws for the case. I just got back from memory express and it turns out that they don't sell the case screws I need (basically, just a standard case screw but ~double the length)

Anyone know where I could find them?

problem with the screws? your other hd/drives usually have 4 screws, remove 1 on each and used it on your new hd. or each side panel have 2, remove 1 of them and should be fine.

[hampstor]

Ask them for thumb screws - generally they are quite a bit longer.

[takkyu]

Originally posted by em2ab
Any SATA hard drive is going to come with a SATA cable. Plus you should have some from when you bought your motherboard.
-snip-

Maybe if you buy retail hard drives, but OEMs do not come with cables, and the only OEMs that i've seen come with screws are the Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB Drives.