[johnsoncolleena]

my hard drive is failing 20g primary [replacing soon] also have a 160g hd for media.
should i just get a external hd and transfer media to it or stick with a internal hd? [ about $120 to spend]
what hd's are compatible with my system? [ ive been told ata does that means any ata or what]?
what should i be careful of or not get?
any comments or suggestions appreciated
looking for simple solution [newbie]
thx

Edited by johnsoncolleena, 15 February 2006 - 06:30 PM.

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Yeah you should be able to use any ata drive. I recently upgraded my HD, and man what a difference just upgrading that made. I installed a 400 gig seagate drive with the 16 mb cache. Spent about $200 on it. Was on sale it normally goes for around 280. But you should be able to get a smaller 200 gig or so for A LOT less. And unless you need to take your info with you, just get an internal one.
-Pete.

[p-zero]

Yeah you should be able to use any ata drive. I recently upgraded my HD, and man what a difference just upgrading that made. I installed a 400 gig seagate drive with the 16 mb cache. Spent about $200 on it. Was on sale it normally goes for around 280. But you should be able to get a smaller 200 gig or so for A LOT less. And unless you need to take your info with you, just get an internal one.
-Pete.

[Hammm]

I don't like externals much, too mych trouble, plug in plug out plug in plug out! Yeah, make sure the cache is 16MB, 8 is ok. you won't find much difference between ATA ans SATA. Theorticly, SATA offers 150Mb/s transfer and SATA 2 offers 300Mb/s which is all rubbish. a 10,000 rpm Western Digital Raptor can only spit out in bursts of 70Mb/s and 15,000 SCSI drives give you like, 100Mb/s no where near the top. but note because of the ATAs aging IDE connection new HD ROM and Blu-Ray may use SATA or SATA 2(most likely SATA 2) to connect up. Also note the need for molex 6 pin power for SATA drives. look out for NCQ and stuff like that. i suggest a Western Digital, they're really good. Go for the Caviars which have 8Mb cache or Caviar SE with 16Mb

[warriorscot]

SATA drives are a huge amount faster than standrad ATA and not just in transfer rate, News Flash raptors arent that fast most of the new 16Mb cache sata2s are faster than it. If you cant get SATA try and get ultra ata if its supported and as big a cache as possible make sure you get as fast a drive as your machine supports.

Any of the big brands are fine price is usually the most importnat factor.

[Hammm]

Yeah, i don't have SATA so i don't know but they'll be making Blu-Ray and HD ROM from SATA so i suggest you get SATA, it's the trend here.

[warriorscot]

There are some hefty advantages to SATA including price factors and speed, New DVD drives are increasingly being made in SATA, but with the new formats the higher transfer rate and advanced features is more of a neccesity than a nicity as it is with drives now.

Although i wouldnt advise getting a Blu-ray or HD-DVD drive until it is more clear as to which standard will be the most prevalent if either of them actually stick around, with reducing Flash media costs and sizes as well as the latest developments in holograpy they could be phased out sooner than people think.

[Hammm]

yeah that's what i think, but one thing is sure, Mepg2(DVD) to HD won't be as much of a hit as VHS to DVD purely because of the fact that the up in quailty isn't as good as it was from good old VHS to DVD

[warriorscot]

Well VHS had certain disadvantages in that the medium itself was analogue and it was never possible to perfectly copy a tape. And then there is the fact that it wasnt the quality factor of the DVD so much as teh extras you got and the higher quality sound, but most people dont have HD televisions yet so it doesnt make much difference(mind you i have one its immense, picture quality from my pc is excellent).

The only difference in the movies themsleves is the higher resolution which people wont notice until they get the hardware as i said, file formats will generally remain the same apart from the higher quality levels of encoding will be used.

Edited by warriorscot, 17 February 2006 - 03:36 PM.