Whether you are just wishing to upgrade the hard drive of your PC or you’re a real computing enthusiast who’s assembling a customized computer at home, the variety of internal hard drives available on the market can be a little bewildering. Here are a few tips to make purchasing that new hard drive a little bit easier.
Decide how much space you’re going to need. This is probably one of the most important factors to consider when looking for a new hard drive. For example, if you are a photographer or use your computer to store videos, television programs, and other vast multimedia libraries, then you will probably want the largest capacity hard drive you can find, with at least 1 TB of space. If you’re just going to use your computer for Microsoft Office, Excel, storage of data documents and a few family photos, you will not need nearly as much space. A note to keep in mind is that while there are internal hard drives offering up to 4TB of space, older computers may not recognize space above 2.19 TB. If you have an older computer, do your research about installation solutions if you simply must have 4 TB of space.
Decide if one hard drive will be enough. The most common configuration on the market is still the one hard-drive set-up, but power users and those who want speed and extra security to prevent catastrophic loss of data due to a Windows crash are opting for a multiple-drive system. However, a good solution for most computer users is to have one drive for programs and another drive for everything else. This will protect data from crashes and provide users with a bit more speed and lots more space for storage. However, if cost is an issue and only one internal hard drive will be used, make sure that it is a high-quality one and that should be sufficient if not too much space is needed.
Decide how fast you need your hard drive to access your data. Usually, the faster a hard drive spins and retrieves your data, the costlier it will be. The industry average speed is 7,200 rpm; however, faster hard drives tend to have smaller capacities. For example, the largest capacity at the moment for a hard drive capable of 10,000 rpm is only 1 TB, and costs over $270. On the other hand, a slower hard drive, with a speed of 5,400 rpm and the same capacity will cost two thirds less at around $90.
Learn which interface will be most appropriate for your PC. Almost all hard drives nowadays use the Serial ATA or SATA interface which comes in two different formats; the older 3 Gbps or the newest 6 Gps speed. Check your computer’s motherboard; if it has a 6 Gbps or SATA III port and your drive can support the newer technology, then take advantage of it because it will operate at double the speed. If you’ve got a much older PC, you’ll notice the drive uses a Parallel ATA or PATA port, also called an IDE port. It will be slower and larger than SATA. PATA drives can still be found on the market if you look around enough, but if possible, it’s better to use the speedier SATA.
Make sure the drive is the right physical size. Most drives come in a 3.5 inch size, which is perfectly fine for almost all PC cases. However, some are only 2.5 inches, so before purchasing a smaller-dimensioned internal hard drive, ensure that your PC case has a way to mount it.
