A new Hard disk Drive ??

B

bradleyjonesuk

Guest
Hi all,

I currently only have 1x 160Gig HDD on my Compaq computer with 512 ram, AMD processor 3 ghz etc etc I bought in jan this year. I have quite a lot of music / dvd files (very big approx 5 gig each) and only have about 10gb left. This means that virus scans through McAfee and programs like Spybot / Adware are very very slow.

I dont know wheter to get an internal or external HDD. I have fitted an internal sound card but not sure if I would be able to fit a new HDD. As I bought it from PC World and have a 5 yr guarentee should I buy one from them and get them to fit it ?? Im sure it will be a little more expensive but maybe less hassle ??

Also I was then thinking of having one HDD for music / dvds and one for everything else. Would it be better to have an external HDD like Seagate Pushbutton Backup 300GB External Firewire/USB 2.0 8MB (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Seagate.html) as I could then save all my files to this and then it should slow down my computer ???

Im sorry as I dont know a great deal about this stuff and appreciate any comments.

Cheers

Brad
 
Well first, you don't need to scan DVD files for viruses etc. so you could stop your A/V software doing that .. there are no known DVD player exploits so a virus could never be triggered from MPEG files.

Fitting a second drive isn't overly complex, but it needs you to go into the BIOS to configure it (possibly, depending on how it's currently configured it may or may not see it). However, if you're not experienced then I would certainly suggest you at least finding out how much getting PC World to do it would be .. and check your warranty, they may not allow user-modifications, some suppliers don't.

That said, there's a lot to be said for an external drive .. not least because you can always get a second one if your space needs continue to grow. It also provides you a means of backing up your system to a stand-alone device which can be stored separately which can have its' advantages.

Speed-wise USB 2 compares well with SATA for most purposes .. I tihnk on balance I'd go external.
 
Just thought I'd add something for you to think about, I remember someone having bought from PC World and took out a 5 year guarantee. In this guarantee it included a free pc health check (basically they check your pc, clean it, scan it and use it as a chance to sell you extra stuff :) but a good idea for novices) which also included free installation of any hardware purchased at PC world.

Something to look at, saves you any hassles or worries.
 
Thanks guys.

Yeah mine includes the PC health check which will be in Jan 06 so maybe this will include free fitting. I only got this because it was about £130 for 5 year guarantee !!!Maybe I should see what sort of price they want for an internal and compare with the external. Do you have any recomendations for brand for internal / extrernal ??

Is the Seagate one I mentioned above any good if I go down external route? Also is the seagate a back up device ?? Would it be worth backing up everything to it so if my PC crashed I would have all data saved ?? What program should I use to back up the data.

Cheers

Brad
 
The Maxtor external drives I use come with backup software, I'd be very suprised if the Segate drives don't also.. I'd recommend the external route personally.. though slightly more expensive, you get a proper backup solution which can be worth it's weight in gold if the worst happens..
 

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