Hard Drive Help!

danzeg

Hi Everyone!

I am thinking of getting a new hard drive, as the one i have now is getting quite small as I am using it more and more (it is 80gb). Ive been looking around places for one and have seen one in PC World for £68.55 - Hitachi, Product Id (757698) (on the website). Also i have a coverplan with them on my comp so if i was to upgrade they would come replace the new hard drives disk space.

Can someone please give me advice on wheter there are better deals elsewhere and if this is a good deal.

Thanks

Daniel

mondayuk

You can usually pick them up cheaply on ebay but if you're concerned about installation and you can get it done free then it's worth considering.
Another thing to mention is that storage is most readily and easily available these days in USB form. If you're just wanting to store a load of MP3s and Photos (ie stuff that you dont mind accessing ever so slightly slower) then you can buy a USB hard drive off the web, plug it into your USB port, and have the storage available instantly. Another benefit of this is that you can move it between computers if you want to etc.

danzeg

Well....it's not about the installation.
I know this may sound quite bad....but PC World/ PC Service Call have had to replace 3 hard drives and i think that I just have bad luck with them!
PC World said that if i was to take my coverplan details...they will be able to add that on the system and if i was ever to have a problem with it they would replace it at the same size i bought.

gunneradt

try ebuyer - fitting a hard drive is simple.

mondayuk

Might be worth it then if you think you'll have to replace it.
Internally your motherboard will only support a limited number of drives, and your computer's case my further limit this. It's possible that they might replace your drive instead of adding a new one. In which case wave bye bye to all that software and data you have loaded unless you can reload it from CD for example. Just a couple of things to consider, there's really no right answer.

Little_John

Hitachi are what used to be IBM drives and their reliablity is poor I have 2 120GB drives which I have replaced with Western Digital becasue of the reliability problems with them.
I would be very warry about buyng a drive from ebay, I know lots of people have but drives are inportant and 2nd hand isnt always a good thing as they do wear out over time. Buy new and you always have the warrently to fall back on and someone to replace it in the first year.

Firstly make sure you get the right conenction SATA or IDE if it is IDE you could be limited to a ATA100 drive contoler which will only support a drive up to ~133GB ATA133 supports drives over ~133GB. Tell us the make and model of your motherboard and I will find out what your pc will take if it ia branded PC tell me the make and model again and I will try to find out more. If your local to me I will come and help fit it for you also (Manchester)

I recomend Western Digital drives I have 4x 250GB drives by them and they are on 24 hours aday no problems. up to 320GB you should be looking at less than £90 the next jump to 400GB is about £170.

Check out Scan for prices they are very good and alot cheaper than PC world.

Fitting a drive is easy, it only gets dificult if you want to replace your existing drive witht he new one but copying the drive is pretty easy too. It is always best to install Windows on a new drive rather than coppying it over as it clears your system of all the junk that builds up over time and you should get almost new pc performance again with a fresh install.

If I can be of any more help let me know. Im a PC engineer btw

John

mondayuk

And all of those thorny issues is why I recommend a USB hard drive. You'll find it cures that headache right up.

Always remember though a hard drive is only as good as it's last backup.

Little_John

A USB drive is great for occasional storage but no good for replaceing a system drive, the aditional power connectors and extra wires internal is much better and a lot faster especially if they dont have USB2.

Most PC's can support 4 IDE drives from 2 ports SATA drives require a port for each drive.

danzeg

Little_John wrote:

Hitachi are what used to be IBM drives and their reliablity is poor I have 2 120GB drives which I have replaced with Western Digital becasue of the reliability problems with them.
I would be very warry about buyng a drive from ebay, I know lots of people have but drives are inportant and 2nd hand isnt always a good thing as they do wear out over time. Buy new and you always have the warrently to fall back on and someone to replace it in the first year...............

Well, I'm a bit embarrassed to say what my computer is!!

It is a Medion Microstar 2201 - http://www.pcservicecall.co.uk/layout.aspx?ID={eeead0bb-d0b0-47f0-a8a1-301d86ca04cd}&CatID=!!2ea571f5-83da-472f-a6cd-28103085e077}

I don't know how to check wheter my computer will take a large hardrive (over 133gb), but it is only a few years old so i dont know. i don't think i will have a problem installing the hardrive myself, how hard can it be lol!

Also, if Hitatchi are abit unrelaible, how is samsung....pc world have a 250gb harddrive on there for a few pounds more???

Thanks to everyone getting back to me so quickly...i really appreciate it! Thanks!!!

Little_John

Samsung arnt much better but they are better

Im looking in to your pc spec now

raymond

Never ever ever ever buy a hard drive from Ebay or any other unknown source. They are a very delicate device and if mishandled they can fail very quickly. It has also been known for "seconds" to be sold off cheap.

For me certainly, money is secondary to the integrity of my data and not having to spend long periods of time restoring data is primary.

There is not a huge difference in price between different brands of similar size so go for a Seagate and play safe.

You can also go to the Seagate website regularly and analyse your hard drive using their diagnostics and see if it is about to fail.