Hard Drive Help For Newbie

[bmoster]

I am considering upgrading my hard drive but im confused. If i get a 30g.b. ata/100 7200 rpm will this work with my older p.c. and will I have to buy anything else (controller cards,cables,etc.) The p.c. I have now is 2.5yrs old its a PII 333mhz. 7 g.b.Quantum fireball hard drive. Im using windows me. How do I find out what kind of controller i have in my p.c. now? and what would be a good brand of h.d. for upgrade.and do I really need a 7200rpm. MAny thanx in advance

 

[Nessism]

To find out what kind of controller you have now, check with your motherboard mfg. and look in the bios. If it shows DMA 2, then it is ATA33. Also, watch your screen during boot-up, it should list the drive mode.

An ATA100 hard drive will work fine with an older system. Your motherboard will most likely use ATA33 which will force your hard drive to follow. I would not worry too much about this however, even the fastest hard drives will only have to slow down a small amount when used on a ATA33 controller. ATA100 is not very useful at this point in time.

As far as which hard drive to get, check in the Hot Deals section and go for the best bargain. All the modern hard drives are quite good and you can't go wrong. IBM drives have a good reputation these days for being fast and quiet but I would just look for the best deal. Lastly, go for a 7200rpm drive only if you are looking to upgrade your system sometime soon. Considering your present system, 5400 will be fine. Good luck.

 

[MAZZHOLE]

bmoster
IBM all the way...
Quiet, fast, dependable, and competively priced.

Be forwarned that you might have to downgrade the
drive from ATA100 or ATA66 down to ATA33. IBM,
Maxtor, and others have this "quick fix" on their websites.
Some motherboards are not compatable with the new drives.

If you do upgrade your board or get a contoller card,
the same "fix" can reverse the switch whenever you want.

 

[emjem]

The one essential component that sucks up most of your time while using a pc is the hard drive -- unless you are a big time floppy or Cd Rom user. So I say go for the 7200. I threw away my 5400 hdds right after I started using my first 7200 -- big improvement.

Further, since the hdd is the most likely component to be used in your next computer upgrade, plan ahead. That most likely means go with ata100 and of sufficient size for your future needs.