Current Spec

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
Asus P5N-E SLI 650i Socket 775
GeForce 7600GT 256MB TV

250 Gb SATA HDD

Looking to get and add a second HDD (if only to help Fraps ability)


Anyhow - is it a simple case of adding it and there it all works or will i have to do 'special stuff' or should I just get an external one?

I've heard 'horror' stories about people adding additional HDD's to a system and then it wiping the existing one

Cheers,

Dru

http://lifehacker.com/software ... l-a-hard-drive-137179.php

I've got 2 HDDs in my computer (non-raid). Adding the second one was no trouble at all, just plug in the right cables in the right places. Once installed you have to partition and format it, so be careful which hard drive you partition and format (it should be obvious which hard drive is which when you go to partition it). Other than that, it's a straightforward process that shouldn't give you any hassle.

I have 2 harddrives, 1 for the operating system and 1 for everything else. Plus a 3rd that I use to back stuff up but I only plug it in when it's needed.

You just plug it in and format it, job done.

In XP or Vista for example all you need to do is right click on the drive you want to format and then click Format.

Piece of p!ss mate.

Screw drive in place (most likely needing to take both sides of case off), attach 2 cables - one for power one for data.

Boot into XP, go to Drive Management, partition/format new drive.

The only 'horror stories' I know of are when people are reinstalling and have one drive with 2 identical sized partitions...it can be very easy to reinstall onto the wrong one and lose the data you thought you were keeping.

Quote from Bean0 :

The only 'horror stories' I know of are when people are reinstalling and have one drive with 2 identical sized partitions...it can be very easy to reinstall onto the wrong one and lose the data you thought you were keeping.

Hmmmmm maybe thats what Chris did


Ok,

So then peeps.. as a secondary drive - what should I go for? or should I get a larger than 250GB one and transfer everythnig (excluding OS) onto it?

All suggestions welcomed

There's always a chance the BIOS isn't set to autodetect all the drives, and has them manually configured. If that's the case and you don't see the drive in your OS, changing the BIOS to autodetect is probably the easiest way to cure it.

I always set my BIOS to manual as it reduces boot times a little (that and I'm used to pre-autodetection - I miss typing in heads, cylinders and sectors, it made buying a new drive more exciting).

Anyone got any suggestions then for a second HDD?

looking to spend £80 tops.

I got a 500GB Western Digital of Komplett for €75 IIRC a couple of months back, runs at 15 degrees, silent as a...silent thing

But Komplett's UK division has been shut down, so IDK...

There's loads of cheap-ish drives around, just make sure to get one with a well known name...of all things to risk a false economy on, a hard drive is not one

How much space do you want?

I'd spend £20 more (sorry!) and get a Samsung F1 1TB drive, and install my OS on that, and then use the other HDD for storage, as the F1 is crazy fast (fastest non-Raptor HDD on the market).

If not that then a 500GB WD AAKS / Seagate 7200.11 Barracuda would be good, even better the very fast 640GB drive I can't remembe the name of.

Spent £50 on a 320GB a 500GB Seagate Barracuda.

Hooked it up an works like a charm

Video editting is gonna be so much better now. I did a test and it handles 30 TBO's driving by in 1280 reso no problems

Thanks all for your help

Regards,

Dru.

Yup the only thing I would think about is your power supply. A little extra juice is needed to spin it up and run it.

Quote from Toddshooter :

Yup the only thing I would think about is your power supply. A little extra juice is needed to spin it up and run it.

Current PSU is a modular hx520W Corsair - should be enuff with my titchy system

In my experience you don't need a lot of power for hard drives - certainly nowhere near as much as even a medium-range CPU these days.

Did you get this drive, Dru? If so, looks good. I've always been a fan of Western Digital drives (think I've had 13 now and only one of those has been faulty (it was DOA though, so didn't go bang during usage)).

A word of warning about adding a drive though...it doesn't matter how many times you say "I'm running out of space so I'll buy this drive and it'll be the last one I buy" you'll always end up buying more drives!

Corsair PSU's rock - the 450w units have been tested up to 593w before they give out and all the while still getting 83% effeciency...

Quote from amp88 :

In my experience you don't need a lot of power for hard drives - certainly nowhere near as much as even a medium-range CPU these days.

Did you get this drive, Dru? If so, looks good.

Actually i got this one - bit cheaper and a bit smaller but still plenty good enuff for me

Quite funny actually - I installed it with hte sata cable then failed to realise that the second sata connector was a the power one

So i took it out and trawled through the internet for 30 minutes looking for pictures as I was convinced I had been supplied a HDD without a power source

I'm such an idiot when it comes to technology

Quote from Jakg :

Corsair PSU's rock - the 450w units have been tested up to 593w before they give out and all the while still getting 83% effeciency...

If Jack says its good then I know its right or that hes just got a free one beta testing and is 'contracted' to talk it up J/K Jack

Been running a Corsair 520 HX for quite some time now with absolutely NO issues whatsoever. Looking at my specs in my sig shows that it's powering quite a lot of stuff (including a 125W processor!) Though I don't have a MONSTER graphics card, but 5 HDDs have got to count for something...

It's an amazingly built piece of equipment. Got a black rough metal coating and it's extremely heavy (good sign.) Very quiet, and mine's modular so I don't have excessive cables either

Quote from Stang70Fastback :

Been running a Corsair 520 HX for quite some time now with absolutely NO issues whatsoever. Looking at my specs in my sig shows that it's powering quite a lot of stuff (including a 125W processor!) Though I don't have a MONSTER graphics card, but 5 HDDs have got to count for something...

It's an amazingly built piece of equipment. Got a black rough metal coating and it's extremely heavy (good sign.) Very quiet, and mine's modular so I don't have excessive cables either

I'm another Corsair PSU user (HX620) and it's powering my system perfectly. Easy to fit, modular so I don't have too many cables, quiet and no problems so far (touch wood). My 8 disk RAID array's enclosure has a 350W PSU but it's obviously very unstressed for what it's doing.

Interesting. I've not added a SATA drive as yet. So I'm assuming there is no need to set the drives to master and secondary etc like you do with IDE then?

No there isn't - it's as symple as plugging it in (and plugging the power in - doh on that one many times )

SATA is still IDE. It's just the master and slave settings are now seperate sockets, so there's no need to tell the drive where on the cable you're plugging it in.