1. 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.
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2. 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
3. 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
4. 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
5. 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
6. 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 company
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7. 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
8. 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
9. 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 You can get more information at Or find
reviews at
