Adding more storage

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Daethwalker

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Oct 2, 2011
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I'm down to around 55 gb of a 465 gb hard drive and want to add more storage.
My questions for the forum:
Should I replace the HD with a larger one? Add a 2nd HD and use both? Replace the HD with an SSD? Or add an SSD and use the old HD also?
I'm totally clueless when it comes to storage and have never swapped or added a HD before on any of the many pcs I've had over the years.
 
Solution
Hawkeye22
If your OS is on that drive and you lack the experience to clone the drive or install an OS from scratch, then I'd recommend that you just get a large secondary hard drive as that would probably be the easiest for you. You just need to check if you've got the space inside the computer to mount a second drive, a free sata port, and a free power connector from the power supply. Once you see how your current drive is attached, it should be pretty easy to figure out how to install the new drive. After installation, go into disk management and initialize the drive, then you will be able to use it in windows.
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urbanrider

urbanrider

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Its tough to give a good answer for this without knowing what your using your computer for and your budget.

The option I'd recommend is a SSD sized to fit all your programs and a HDD sized to fit all your large files. This is the best balance between performance and cost. It does add a bit of complexity to your system though.
If you're looking for a dead simple solution, just go out and buy a 2TB HDD, there pretty cheap these days.

I'd start by first getting a SSD and moving your OS and programs onto it and keep your old HDD. Once you run out of space on your old HDD then go out and pick up a new larger one.
 
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Hawkeye22

Hawkeye22

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If your OS is on that drive and you lack the experience to clone the drive or install an OS from scratch, then I'd recommend that you just get a large secondary hard drive as that would probably be the easiest for you. You just need to check if you've got the space inside the computer to mount a second drive, a free sata port, and a free power connector from the power supply. Once you see how your current drive is attached, it should be pretty easy to figure out how to install the new drive. After installation, go into disk management and initialize the drive, then you will be able to use it in windows.
 
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Solution
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Daethwalker

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Mostly gaming. The cheaper the better I guess. This is a "budget" pc I had custom built for me a few years ago for around $600. Since then I've upgraded it as needed, to continue playing games. Ram, cpu and gpu. For storage, I just kept deleting files and games I was no longer playing. Now, I'm at the point where I've cleaned and deleted as much as I feel comfortable with and just figured I'd upgrade instead. When I got it, the 465 gb seemed huge. Not so much anymore. :p


 
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Daethwalker

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Haven't cloned a drive since the mid 90s and the ones I have cloned were custom configs for Point of Sale drives in various stores for the company I worked for at the time. Back then, if I recall correctly it was basically attach a cable and run a program from my company laptop to the stores pc that was setup for PoS or a custom box we provided.
I've done OS installs enough times to know that I hate doing OS installs. :p So, I haven't done one from scratch since I had probs with this one when I first got it and had to reinstall.
 
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urbanrider

urbanrider

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From the sounds of your last post you’re not interested in fiddling around with different drives. If that’s the case, then as mentioned above the easiest route is to just install another HDD in your case and leave your OS on your current HDD.
If you don’t have a spare SATA port on your motherboard and a spare power cable from your power supply, then you will have to clone your HDD onto the new larger HDD.

Also make sure you buy a second SATA cable to use with your new HDD.
 
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Daethwalker

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South Bridge:
1.1 x IDE connector supporting ATA-133/100/66/33 and up to 2 IDE devices
2.5 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors supporting up to 5 SATA 3Gb/s devices
3.1 x eSATA 3Gb/s port on the back panel supporting up to 1 SATA 3Gb/s device
4.Support for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10 and JBOD
iTE IT8718 chip:
1.1 x floppy disk drive connector supporting up to 1 floppy disk drive
 
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Daethwalker

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Thanks for the help guys. I think for now I'll just go with Hawkeye22's suggestion and get a big secondary HD. It looks to be the cheapest, easiest and laziest way to go ... and that's me, cheap, easy and lazy. :p
Thanks again. :)
 
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