Looking for a new hard drive ?
checkout our Buyers guide to Hard Drives
Buyers guide to Hard Drives - There is a are multitude of
different hard drive types on the market, so when it comes to
purchasing a Hard Drive there are a few vital points to consider
.
The interface is it IDE , SCSI or
Serial (SATA) ?
What capacity of drive are you looking for .
The physical size of the drive “ very important for laptops and
notebooks “ .
Drive performance, how much faster will it make my computer .
IDE Hard Drives
Firstly we have the interface ,
most computers today have IDE interface hard drives , which
stands for “ Integrated Drive Electronics “
It will have two connectors on
the drive, one for the data cable which is a 40 pin connector
and a 4 pin connector for the power cable.
 The
physical size of the drives is pretty much divided into two
categories, the 3.5" which is used in most desktop computers,
and the 2.5" which is used in pretty much all laptop or notebook
computersThe capacity of drives today ranges from a lowly few
gigabytes to around 1000 gigabytes or a terabyte, this is for
3.5" hard drives. 2.5" drives go up to around 250 gigabytes.
Note
Newer computers and laptops should be compatible with the larger
hard drives, but older computers and notebooks may not recognize
the size of the disk,
If it is beyond the limitations imposed by the manufacturer of
the computer or motherboard.
If you are upgrading / replacing a laptop hard drive check the
height of the current hard drive and make sure the replacement
is the same height or lower.
some laptops , especially sub notebooks will only accept
low profile hard drives.
When it comes to drive performance there are a couple of points
to note, the bus speed of the drives are ATA100 and ATA133 are
100MBps and 133MBps. Serial 150MBps
It's all very well buying the fastest drive you can find, but
will your computer be able to make the most of the new drive and
run it at it's fastest speed.
There is very little point in paying the extra for a ATA133 type
drive when your computer will only support up to ATA100.
So you really need to check this out first.
Which can be done by simply searching under the make and model
of your computer or motherboard .
computer adviser buyers guide to hard drives
If you find that your computer will not support the latest
drives and that's what, or you need a hand installing have a
look at our
drive install page
The next point to look for in a faster hard drive is the spindle
or rotational speed, the fastest ones today spin at 7200rpm ,
the older generation 5400rpm.The last thing to look at is the
disk cache, this makes the drive quicker when you are using the
same information from the drive. the cache sizes are generally
around 8mb, although there are some 16mb types available.
computer adviser buyers guide to hard drives
Serial Hard
Drives SATA
Serial type hard
drives are relatively new on the market, the bus speed of them
is 150MBps. You will need to have a serial interface built into
your computer or alternatively you can purchase a PCI serial
card.
The drive capacity is pretty much on par with the desktop IDE
type drives, it's just a little faster,
But at present it's a little too expensive to justify the 12.7%
performance increase of the IDE ATA133, unless you absolutely
must have every bit of extra performance.
computer adviser buyers guide to hard drives
SCSI Hard
Drives
The last type of
hard drive is the SCSI , “ small computer system interface “
hard drive , this type of drive is mostly seen in servers or
older style Macintosh’s.
It's still pretty expensive compared to IDE or Serial hard
drives, so not really recommended unless you already have this
type of drive installed.
computer adviser buyers guide to hard drives
Checkout more on hard drives including formatting and
maintenance
computer adviser
buyers guide to hard drives article |
