Adding an extra HDD?

James_Lahey

Currently have 2 HDDs on my PC (Acer T180) first is 160GB Sata as came with the machine, second is 500gb western digital drive that I installed later.

Looking inside the PC I can see only 2 sata ports (both used for drives listed above) Would ideally like to add another 500GB of storage - what is the easiest/most cost efficient way of doing this? External drive would be fine but I believe USB would be a lot slower to access/search? could I use something like this? -

http://www.amazon.com/2-Port-Splitter-Power-Cable-15-Pin/dp/B000S5F9VW

And if so would it be simple to do (plug and play - with no loss of data on 500gb drive?)

Or would I be better off buying a TB drive and replacing the 500gb one installed atm (+ easiest way of moving 400GB of info across)

Thanks in advance!

Basil1234

i had a tower with 4 drives in it got myself a sata pci card to sort the issue.
provided you have spare slot the cable you have showed will sort the power issue the link below is what i'm on about for comms.
i have used pcworld as an example as they are everywhere but there c/s sucks so this is just to show you.
also make sure you have spare space in you tower as most standard towers take only 2 harddrive bays.
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/dynamode-4-port-sata-pci-card-07843258-pdt.html?srcid=867&cmpid=comp~Google~Computing~07843258&istCompanyId=9a35962d-802d-4e67-9721-0a3328ca1f02&istItemId=qwitltt&istBid=t

your other option prob the cheapest if not another space is slap a 2tb inside the pc take the 500gb one out in a caddy and run as a backup and can then carry around if required.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Max-Value-inch-Drive-Enclosure/dp/B002LVUIQM/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1339183363&sr=8-7
£18.66
reckon if you do that £100 for caddy and drive and have a drive to carry around with you.

closed

usb3 you won't notice any difference in speed, and usb2 hardly any difference. 1TB portable drives are going for £60-70, and make hardly any noise

Fast search http://www.voidtools.com/ provided you format with ntfs.

Each one of those drives will be adding to the cost (and noise) of running the machine, cheaper and simpler to have fewer internal drives in the long run.

James_Lahey

Thanks Basil, I have 2 spare bays for hard drives and 2 spare PCI slots so this sounds ideal - I'll go and have a look through ebuyer now - thanks again!

James_Lahey

Pretty sure I don't have USB3 and although I should have USB2 everytime I plug a device into any of my USB ports I get the "this would perform better in a USB2 port" message - and unless there are hidden USB ports on my pc I've tried them all.

An internal option would be best for me anyhoo - although many thanks for the advice.

Basil1234

your welcome

closed

buying one big drive, and cloning the 160 to it http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx , then copying data from the 500 is simpler and cheaper than adding cards.

usb2 should show up as enhanced usb under device manager, testing the read/write speed should prove it one way or the other

http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/crystaldiskmark_portable

closed

http://support.acer.com/acerpanam/desktop/0000/Acer/AspireT180/AspireT180sp2.shtml

says usb 1.1 ~ 2

a usb2 card is inexpensive if you only have usb 1.1

James_Lahey

So USB2 card + external drive - or clone (scared!) my 160gb onto a TB internal?

Cheapest/easiest/fastest (access once installed)

p.s. thanks a lot for the help!

James_Lahey

£4.50 for the USB2 PCI card - with 4 external and one internal port - seems like a no-brainer regardless of what I go for -
http://www.ebuyer.com/108594-newlink-5-port-usb-2-0-pci-card-with-4-external-ports-and-sp-6212-4p

closed

You could have usb2 already, check device manager, or do a speed test

Provided you get the source and destination drive right - the size of disk gives a good clue, cloning is simple - search the videos on youtube for clone.

or if you have space, you could use the same software to do a disk image backup to any drive, then restore that to the new drive using a boot cd.

The answer really depends how much you're prepared to spend, what the data is, how important it is, and the likely future sizes, and also how long before you plan to upgrade the machine.