I recently purchased the DELL XPS 435MT with a 1 TB hard drive. I wanted to know what upgrade options I have. I wanted to add another 1.5 TB drive to it, but what confuses me is the design specs mentioned on the dell website
HardDrive Capacity
Up to 1 TB Multiple Serial ATA Hard Drives with both hard drives utilized
With two hard disk drives, optional RAID 0 (striping) or RAID 1 (mirroring with Data Security DataSafeTM Internal
External Connections
Additional drives can connect to eSATA, 1394 and/or USB 2.0 ports
Drive Bays
Three 3.5": (two internal, one external)
Two 5.25" bays
I dont have much hardware knowledge so would appreciate if someone can answer my questions or direct me to some usefull links
My question is how many drives can I actually attach to this system. I also have another 500 GB PATA drive lying around and thought if I could attach that one too.
You just need to open the case, and see how many SATA connections you have available. Not much more complicated than that my friend. I am sure you will at least have 1 more, maybe 3 more. Whether or not you can connect an IDE drive, well you need to see if you have a standard IDE connector on the board. Then, you will need to check to see if you have enough power connections for them.
eSATA and 1394 and USB of course are all external connections.
Does it matter if I put in a 1.5 TB Hard drive or there is restriction on the size. Like it says "Up to 1 TB Multiple Serial ATA Hard Drives with both hard drives utilized"