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Geek Culture / First Time PC Upgrader! - Additional Internal or External Harddrive?

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Mr Tank
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Joined: 25th Nov 2002
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 19th Sep 2007 23:59
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Hi there. I gather you guys know a lot about computars.
I'm running out of space on my HD. Want to get some more. The question is, do i go for an Internal or External one?

I would quite like to get a new comp one day, and thus it would be easy with an external one to move my stuff- can this be done easily with an internal one though?

I also am a bit worried about whether i'll be able to get it working. I had a look inside and there's plenty of spare power cables, and the big fat one that goes to the existing harddrive has a spare connector chained on after it. I guess i just plonk the new HD in a spare hole and plug the two bits in.

I was also thinking maybe external might be better since a catastrophic failure of my PC could maybe kill all the stuff in the box.

Any advice/recommendations would be appreciated.

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SimSmall
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Posted: 20th Sep 2007 00:29
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Well, probably external for a short term solution...

Last time I tried adding an additional internal hard drive to my system, the BIOS just sat there and grumbled something to the tune of "Hard drives can only be Primary Masters"... Because it was on the old IDE system, one had to be demoted to either a Primary Slave, Secondary Master, or (worst case scenario) a Secondary Slave. I opted to put it as a Secondary Master, at which point it promptly began complaining. Those who know this sort of thing will know what I should have done to fix it. Instead of then plonking it in a Hard Drive caddy, and connecting it up via USB 2.0

I don't know if SATA has this limitation or if you can connect several SATA hard drives internally. Since getting a new motherboard, I've replaced both of the old slow IDE drives with a single SATA drive (which has a higher storage capacity than both old drives combined anyway!). I've never had reason to try and connect several SATA drives, but I'd assume that because of the lack of the: Primary/Secondary Master/Slave issues, that it would be possible to do But again, those who are more knowledgeable in this area would know if it really is possible...

Personally, I'd say that if fast disc access is not essential, an external drive would probably suit your needs quite well.
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Preston C
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Posted: 20th Sep 2007 00:41
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Quote: "I don't know if SATA has this limitation or if you can connect several SATA hard drives internally."


You can. My PC at home has two SATA Hard Drives, an 80GB, and a 250GB. Both can be active at the same time.



AMD Opteron 185 2.6 Ghz | 2 GB RAM | 8800 GTS 640MB | Vista Home Premium
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Mr Tank
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Posted: 20th Sep 2007 00:47
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OK i'm lost. Basically i gather an internal one is likely to be a pain in the bum to get working right. Not sure whether it's an IDE or a SATA. How does one tell?
Guess i'll go external then. I'm probably going to have to fix windows installer to get it working, which is another pain in the a-hole. Been trying loads of stuff i found on google, but nothing works yet. Would have been quicker if i could cut and paste error messages, which of course you never can. What's up with that?

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hessiess
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Posted: 20th Sep 2007 01:06
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Quote: "OK i'm lost. Basically i gather an internal one is likely to be a pain in the bum to get working right. Not sure whether it's an IDE or a SATA. How does one tell?"


sata cables are much smaller and red

learn blender, you will never regret it.

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IanM
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Posted: 20th Sep 2007 01:24 Edited at: 20th Sep 2007 01:25
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Internal drives usually will be faster than external, they're cheaper, and they don't need the installer as the drivers are already installed. It'll be worthwhile you making the effort IMO.

I do have some external drives too because I use them with my laptop - I have almost 1TB on tap if I need it


Sata cables
IDE/ATA Cables (although they can be flat ribbon too)
[EDIT]Darn - the URL has an 'illegal character' in it. Here it is in full ... http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=32283&criteria=ide%20cable&doy=19m9

Utility plugins collection and
http://www.matrix1.demon.co.uk for older plug-ins and example code
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Mr Tank
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Posted: 20th Sep 2007 01:52
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1TB?!! How much porn does one man need?
I'm convinced to get an internal one now. From the descriptions/pics i'm pretty sure mine is IDE.
Think i'll get this one:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Generic-Hard-Disk-Drive-320GB/dp/B000OUJUJS/ref=sr_1_18/202-1972289-0799035?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1190241157&sr=1-18
That's 4x more memorys than i've got at the moment.
If you think it looks rubbish or too expensive then give me a shout.

Another question if anyone knows: is it better to make the new, better harddrive the main one, or does it not matter? I'd kind of assumed the cables were kind of like IEEE connections and the drives communicate with the main bit of the computer kind of independently, but then i read you have to select a master and a slave, and it seems by default the new one is the slave.

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