A hard drive upgrade is something everyone could use. It will increase hard drive space, and allow you to store much more on your computer without having to delete any old files that you want to keep.

Getting Started

If you want to do a hard drive upgrade, and your old one still works fine, you then have two options. Your first option is to keep the old hard drive as a secondary and your new one will become your primary.

This will allow you to have more memory because your old one can still be used, plus your new one. The other option is to just remove the old one and replace it with a new one, in which you would have to transfer all your data from the old hard drive to the new one.

Plugs & Cables

You definitely need to know what goes where. So here is a quick lesson on the plugs and cables that hard drives use.

IDE Cable/Slot: The IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) slot and cable connector, is the same no matter what motherboard or hard drive you have for your desktop computer. Of course there are some exceptions, like the UDMA/66 and UDMA/100, which uses a 80-wire cable connector instead of the 40-wire ones. But they still work on all motherboards. There are usually 2 to 4 IDE slots on a motherboard.

SATA Cable Connection: This is the new standard that is replacing big IDE cables, and can be connected to just about every computer made from 2004 and up. SATA is much faster then IDE, and has a much thinner cable, so air will circulate better inside of your computer if you use SATA.

Power Cable: The power cable is a standard power cable that plugs into the back of your hard drive, and then into an available power slot from your PSU (Power Supply Unit) cables.

Master & Slave

Computers peripherals like CD Drives, Hard drives, etc., all use the master and slave technology. On the back of the hard drive, near the IDE cable and power plug in, are the master and slave jumper settings. Don't worry jumper settings are simple.

There are 2 pins for each setting, and the jumper connects those two pins, hence the name "Jumper". So when you are doing a hard drive upgrade, this means the master is the primary hard drive with the Operating System, and the slave is just an extra drive to store things.

In my opinion, the hard drive you have now should be left as the master. Just hook your new hard drive up and change it to slave (all new drives are preset to master). Then, you wouldn't have to copy your old drive to the new one, which is a very tedious task for the beginner.

All you would have to do is partition and format the new drive, and you're done. I will get to this later also when we discuss the actual hard drive upgrade process step by step.

Choosing a Hard Drive Upgrade

• Capacity - We recommend at least 60 to 80GB; but the more the merrier!
• RPM's - Go for 7200RPM - it gives you faster read and write speed.
• Interface Speed - To get the max from your HDD the interface speed must match the interface speed of your PC.
• Seek Speed - Not a huge deal. It's how fast drives can pick a particular piece of data. 8ms or lower is an exceptional seek speed, but 8ms to 9ms is just fine.
• Buffer Size - Go for at least 2MB

Bigger is Better

It would be a smart move to purchase the largest capacity hard drive upgrade that you can afford. Now larger hard drives do cost more than smaller capacity ones, but the cost ratio is odd. For example, the difference in cost between a 40GB and a 60GB hard drive is not much, but a 200 GB hard drive would cost a lot more.

Hard drive capacities have gotten so big these days, and that is a good thing since programs are getting more complex and graphic are getting more intensive. You can now hold an amazing 400 GB of data on a single hard drive upgrade.

So determining what size of hard drive you need is a hard task. It basically depends on how much data you want to store. Some people just need a 60 GB hard drive for their desktop; others will need a bigger hard drive ranging from 120 GB all the way to 250 GB.

If you are using a notebook, then your size requirements differ. Before you purchase your new hard drive upgrade, you should check your computers or motherboard's manual to see how big a hard drive your PC can support.

Hard Drive Speed

You hard drives speed is shown in RPM's (Revolutions Per Minute) and that determines how fast you computer will be able to access data from that hard drive. I recommend that your hard drive upgrade has a speed of at least 7200 RPM. If you go for something less then 7200 RPM's, your applications and games will slow down because it takes so long to access your data. Faster RPM's don't make much difference for word processing or surfing the internet.

Interface Speed

Interface speed is measured in both ATA/100 and ATA/133. But there is not much of a difference between the two values. So to get the maximum performance from your hard drive upgrade, the interface speed must match the interface speed of your computer. If it does not, you will have to install a interface card that matches the speed of the new hard drive.

Seek Speed

The seek speed is how fast your hard drive will find a particular piece of data. The seek speed should not be taken that seriously, because it really only matters if you are going to be copying files and folders all day long.

Buffer Size

Buffer size is a memory cache on your hard drive. This cache data is waiting to go to your computers CPU. Because random-access-memory (RAM) is much faster than mechanical rotating storage, this buffer will speed up your PC's performance. Most hard drive upgrades have buffer sizes of at least 2MB, which is fine for most uses.

RAID and SATA

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks . RAID technology allows you to use more than one hard drive to make a backup of your data, in case your hard drive fails. If you plan to do this, you will need more than one identical hard drive. More computers are using RAID, which can increase your PC's speeds for reading and writing data.

Serial ATA , also known as SATA, is definitely the way to go if you are building your own computer. Even cheap motherboards support SATA, and if you decide to go with a SATA hard drive upgrade, your computer will be easy to set up. Plus, it will also be easy to move your hard drive to another computer if you have to in the future.

Hard Drive Upgrade

How to Install a Hard Drive

Backing up your Data

The most important thing to do before you perform a hard drive upgrade is to back up all of your data, or just the important files. This can be frustrating with all the backup options that you have to choose from, but my data backup solutions page will show you your options and help you to choose the correct backup strategy for you.

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