quick noobish question

[monkey999]

im running out of space on my current hard drive so i was thinking of adding a second one. in order to do this would i just kinda throw it in there and it'll work or what. also would it have to be the exact same hard drive? thanks for help on this dumb question


asus a8n5x mobo and sata hard drive

 

[31computers]

Just add another 1 and go! You don't have to move everything from your 1st drive to your 2nd one either.

You will need to look at what your motherboard supports, how many IDE/SATA slots? Also, how many drives have you got now in total, both HDD's and DVD/CDROM drives.

 

[monkey999]

i have 1 hard drive and 1 cdrom drive and my mobo can support 4 sata hdds
and if i get a hard drive thats differnt like with a bigger cache or higher rpm will i notice any performance difference or will i notice less performance if i choose to add another one?

 

[monkey999]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144701

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822135106

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144415

would these work? im using the 2nd one right now

 

[31computers]

Do you mean 4 x IDE drives i.e. with ribbon cables?

You could put your existing drive as Master on the far end of ribbon 1 (use little pin jumpers on rear of drives). And the Optical drive as Slave on the middle of ribbon 1.

Then buy another Hard drive and put it jumpered as Master on the far end of Ribbon 2.

SATA drives are only a little dearer than IDE(PATA) Drives and have faster data tranfer rates. One of these might be a better alternative, if your Motherboard supports SATA.

 

[monkey999]

lol yea it supports sata so i can just plug another sata drive in and not notice just change in perfomance

 

[chuckshissle]

Make it sure that the motherboard will work with the IDE drive and SATA at the same time. Best way to do it is to connect it with the ribbon same used for the media drive and not through sata-ide adapter.

 

[billdcat4]

The amount of cache in a hard drive doesnt really matter. The WD 250gb Se16 is an excellent drive (im gonna get one soon and ive got a friend with one). The other WD drives are very good too.

Just make sure you buy a SATA cable when you get a new HD. When you buy an OEM HD like the ones linked earlier, no SATA cable is included.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812104557

All you have to do is mount the hard drive in the case and connect the SATA cable to the drive and then to the mobo. Then plug in the SATA power (or the IDE power but not both) to the HD and boot up.

Remember to protect yourself from static when working inside a PC. Ive got two of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16899888207

Its worth it to invest in one.


good luck

 

[monkey999]

ok sounds good thanks for replys