buying new hard-drive but need help

[Angelus]

hi all

iam wanting to get a new hard-drive but now i dont know what i can get for my machine currently i got a 1.8cpu and 384 mb of ram and currently have a 40 gig ata/ide deskstar 7200 rpm.

i went to look at http://www.zones.co.za/ coz the shop is close to me but now they got sata2 i had no clue that iam so far behind which is why iam lost or shall i just get the external hard drive but you see if i get that one for just R200 more i can get a 500gig internal

could someone please help me ... thanks

ps; i know i need i whole new machine lol

 

[Sapphiron]

here a quick guide

There are 2 main hard drive interfaces:
ATA/IDE - what you've got - uses a wide 80pin "ribbon" cable
SATA (v1 and v2) - replacing IDE - uses a narrow red or dark grey cable
Judging from your PC specs, it is unlikely that you will be able to take SATA hard drives, so you Need IDE. There is a slight performance difference between the 2, but your average Joe won't notice the difference, so you could still use the drive in your new PC (whenever that might be)

These hard drives can be put into an external enclosure (making them R200-500 more expensive) and connect either via USB, Firewire or E-Sata. The Latter 2 are usually rare or only appear on newer PC's

USB drives connected externally a quite a bit slower than internal drives (about 50% slower and far slower responses). if you are simply looking for a hard drive to store music, Movies and documents on, external will do the job now and in future, but if you are looking for more space to install software, look to internal drives.

one last thing to look out if going with external drives, is to make sure your PC has USB v2 ports. if you ever get a message in XP when you plug in a flashdrive "this device can perform faster", don't go for an external drive, it will be dog slow.

 

[Angelus]

gee thanks alot :-D

 

[The_Techie]

here a quick guide

There are 2 main hard drive interfaces:
ATA/IDE - what you've got - uses a wide 80pin "ribbon" cable
SATA (v1 and v2) - replacing IDE - uses a narrow red or dark grey cable
Judging from your PC specs, it is unlikely that you will be able to take SATA hard drives, so you Need IDE. There is a slight performance difference between the 2, but your average Joe won't notice the difference, so you could still use the drive in your new PC (whenever that might be)

These hard drives can be put into an external enclosure (making them R200-500 more expensive) and connect either via USB, Firewire or E-Sata. The Latter 2 are usually rare or only appear on newer PC's

USB drives connected externally a quite a bit slower than internal drives (about 50% slower and far slower responses). if you are simply looking for a hard drive to store music, Movies and documents on, external will do the job now and in future, but if you are looking for more space to install software, look to internal drives.

one last thing to look out if going with external drives, is to make sure your PC has USB v2 ports. if you ever get a message in XP when you plug in a flashdrive "this device can perform faster", don't go for an external drive, it will be dog slow.

Got it in one

 

[Juggy]

Only 1 problem, IDE is 40 pin not 80

 

[Keith]

Only 1 problem, IDE is 40 pin not 80

Yup, IDE is 40 pin...he's probably referring to the 40 vs 80 wire versions. Even the 80 wire, introduced with Ultra DMA 66, only uses 40 pins.

 

[Sapphiron]

Yup, IDE is 40 pin...he's probably referring to the 40 vs 80 wire versions. Even the 80 wire, introduced with Ultra DMA 66, only uses 40 pins.

Details details. It might still technically have 40 pins, but because it has 80 wires most people list it as 80pin

 

[The_Techie]

I only use IDE for my DVD writers