2TB Internal Hard Drive

[rushyang]

Hey guys,

I'm planning to extend my internal storage capacity of Desktop PC. Currently I have 1x160GB IDE and 1x500GB SATA HDD. I don't want to go for Seagate cause I had have harsh experiences with it in the past. And I can not afford to loose my data again.

So, I thought, I'd go for WD this time. I am located in Gujarat, India & I'm thinking to get it online. I searched and got little bit confused between WD20EARX and WD20EURX.
EARX is little cheap compare to other one. I read reviews on the site and some said its slow & some said one will have to format through WD's software before using the Hard Drive. I need some advice about that.

Also, about the compatibility:
I have MSI P45 Neo Motherboard. It has 6 onboard SATA II ports. But, how to check the maximum compatibility of single SATA port?

 

[fzabkar]

The following document should explain WD's model numbering nomenclature.

Model Numbers - WD Internal Drives:
http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/Flyer/ENG/2579-001028.pdf

 

[phil22]

I have to agree with your prefernce for WD, I too have had more problems with Seagate drives than WD ones.

Looking through WD's current listings, I cannot see a WD20EURX. There is a WD10EURX though, but that has a capacity of only 1TB, which would account for it being cheaper than the 2TB WD20EARX.

Whichever drive you choose, you don't have to use WD software to prepare it for it use. If it's going to be used as a secondary drive you can partition & format it with the Disk Management utility built in to Windows.

Your MSI P45 mobo can handle 2TB hard drives just fine as the SATA ports do not determine the maximum capacity of the drive. It's determined by the Windows version & the BIOS, but for all new or recent motherboards and a modern version of Windows you should have no problem with a 2TB drive.

Finally, regarding the losing of precious data. It's an inescapable fact that all hard drives fail at some point no matter what brand they are, so you should always save your data on at least two physical drives, not just one.