Looking for advice on hard drives

[foam]

I have about 5% free space left on my hard drive on my Dell desktop. Should I buy an external HD or upgrade the internal?

What are the pros and cons? Where is the best place to buy? I live in the GTA.

Thanks.

[willy]

What's model of your system ?

How large is your current HD ?

What are you planning to do with your next HD ?

Budget ?

Without knowing too much about your situation, I would think you can buy a new HD to replace your existing one (for better speed and capacity) and use your existing one as an external for backup purposes.

[Mr Nobody]

Unless you need to share data, no point in buying an external. Buy an internal and ADD to desktop without replacing (upgrading) the existing HD.

External
Pros: Can easily move/share data with other machines. (Bring to friend's house)
Cons: Cost more than internal, takes up desk space

Internal
Pros: Cheaper than external (internal+enclosure), takes up no desk space
Cons: Can't easily share data unless networked.

Preferred RFD upgrade: Delete unwanted files. Cost: $0.00. :)

[fizzer]

If you're ok with opening the box, get the best of both worlds, and purchase a big new drive and an external USB box - both can be obtained at good prices (try canadacomputers or cty). Mirror the old drive onto the new, and swap out your old drive into the external usb box, and voilà - more storage internally, and your old drive is still useful as external storage.

If you're not comfortable opening the box, nice deals can be found on external usb drives for cheap as well. Costco and/or Dell sometimes have nice deals on big external drives.

[foam]

Thanks for the quick replies,

Its a Dell Dimesion 4500, 20GB. I'm thinking about5-6 years old.

Its our home desktop we use for surfing and storing music and photos, typical family type use, no movie downloads or gaming. Some work files are stored on it to, mostly Word and Excel files, again, nothing to large. I've already deleted what I don't use and compressed and formatted the HD.

Future use would be the same. Adding more photos and music. I am thinking that I would like to download movies (to burn onto a DVD, not to store on the HD), but its not a priority. Budget: I'd like to keep it under $100.00 if possible, but cheaper is best.

I recently upgraded my ram to the max because it was slowing down.

Hope that helps.

[7jaii]

500GB SATA HDD is the sweet spot right now, you can buy one for $100 or less. If your motherboard doesn't have SATA ports, and you really want an enclosure then purchase a 500GB external (Futureshop/Dell often has $100+TAX).

Now, in my opinion, you should not allow your HDD free space capacity to fall under 10% or it will be difficult to defrag and slows down your PC. Adding a new HDD is simple and extends your PC's life, it's the second best upgrade after increasing your RAM - Best bang for your $$$

Seagate, Western Digital, Samsung, Hitachi - my order of preference. Buying used with no warranty doesn't make sense when NEW is so cheap.

[Aske001]

Big hard drives are dirt cheap these days. My recommendations:

1. Don't waste your time cleaning up and compressing your hard drive beyond basic simple stuff like deleting big files and folders that you no longer need. Just buy a bigger drive.

2. Always go with an internal drive for performance reasons if you have to choose - external drives are an order of magnitude slower.

3. Don't choose. Buy two drives (internal and external) and use the external to make complete backup copies of your main drive on a regular basis. Anyone who isn't doing this when they have so much important data stored on their main drive needs their head examined! :confused:

[Mr Nobody]

I take that back, since its an old 20GB, its best to chuck it. You won't miss 20GB when you're looking at 500GB. You can Ghost the drive over to the new one.

[foam]

So it looks like internal is the way to go. Is this something I can do my self, or should I find a shop buy and install?

I not overly handy with computers.

[board123]

It's nothing more than screwing in 4 screws and plugging in two cables. Do it yourself.

[7jaii]

It's nothing more than screwing in 4 screws and plugging in two cables. Do it yourself.

Agreed, it's simple to install & format a new drive. You just have to match the correct HDD and have room in your desktop case. Send you PM if you require more assistance.

If buying used then make sure there's warranty. If buying NEW then ask that store's advanced RMA policy (ie. NCIX). If you have 2 thumbs then purchase a Retail Box HDD Kit since it includes installation manual, screws and cables.

[Mr Nobody]

So it looks like internal is the way to go. Is this something I can do my self, or should I find a shop buy and install?

I not overly handy with computers.

If you're looking to add a drive, its easy. If you want to get rid of the old, then its a little more complex.

IMHO, like mechanics and contractors though, I wouldn't trust a computer shop to do ithe 2nd option. Option 1 - adding a drive - should be okay for a shop to do.

Do you have a knowledgeable friend?

[willy]

Not so fast ... There are a few things you need to look at before you make the purchase ...

1. Your system appears to be IDE-only ... you will need to purchase an older-generation IDE HD.

2. Are you running WinXP SP2 or higher ?

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim4500/techov10.jpg

[baxbunny]

Yea, you will have to find an old ide drive. probably only 250GB or 320GB. Then u coudl either add it on to your existing set up. The large ribbon ide cable should have 2 spots to plug in hard drives.
Make sure jumpers are set right, and plug in the ribbon, plug in power, and screw it in. done!

[bcbgboy13]

I just replaced an old 40GB IDE HD in my friend DELL computer this past weekend and she got a nice boost in speed.

However you must find out first if your motherboard will support large hard drives - larger than 137GB.
Second I will recommend that you only purchase a Seagate 3.5" PATA (also called IDE) 7200 rpm internal hard drive depending from your budget- the reason for this is your old HD is small, probably slow and you will need to clone the old HD (which may have a hidden partition in addition to the regular one as it is customary with the brand name machines) and in this case you can use the free Seagate cloning utility called DiskWizard (which will work only with Seagate HDs).

Just follow the instructions from here (http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=DiscWizard&vgnextoid=d9fd4a3cdde5c010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD )

[S_G]

Yea, you will have to find an old ide drive. probably only 250GB or 320GB. Then u coudl either add it on to your existing set up. The large ribbon ide cable should have 2 spots to plug in hard drives.
Make sure jumpers are set right, and plug in the ribbon, plug in power, and screw it in. done!
They didn't stop making IDE / PATA drives at 320GB. You can buy them new at 750GB. Actually, you can even buy SATA drives and use a SATA-to-IDE adapter, or you could get a SATA PCI card. Though, I'm getting a little out of his league here.

Look at prices, see what you're comfortable with paying. A 750GB IDE drive will run you ~$130, 500GB will be ~$90-100, and 320GB ~$60-70.


HOWEVER, because of the age of your computer, it is likely that it does not support 48-bit LBA. In short, this means you will only be able to access the first 127GB of your hard drive. There may be a BIOS update for your computer to alleviate this issue, check the Dell website. If they don't have a BIOS that supports 48-bit LBA, you're out of luck -- time to get a new computer, as you'd be wasting most of your fancy new hard drive's space, unless you purchase a hard drive smaller than 127GB.

[foam]

Yes I'm running XP SP2. I'm not looking for huge amounts of GB, because I will probably be replacing the PC in a year or so. I think if I can get 80 or 100GB, that would be more than enough. (four times the capacity also). How do I find out if my motherboard can support more than 137GB??

So I need a IDE HDD, What else should I look for?

Thanks again!

[willy]

I think you are all set ... Check this one out ... $49 ... http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=000145&cid=HD.443.399

For $8 more, you double up the diskspace (80GB is $41) ... If your mobo supports >137GB HD, that's great. Even if it doesn't, you are still able to use majority of the available diskspace (137GB out of 160GB) ...