Installing 2 hard drives now or wait?

[faive123]

Hi. I am making a little upgrade in my PC switching to a SSD drive (Samsung 830) and having a 3TB Seagate Barracuda for storage. My case is a Corsair Graphite Series 600T Mid-Tower Gaming Case CC600T.
Anyway, the guy that helped me built my PC is installing me those drives but as I know it would be matter of time (aprox 6 months) to fill those 3TB to avoid the hassle to call him again I was thinking about installing alreadly another 3TB hard drive just to be ready. Is this a good idea? My concern is that these additional hard drive would be absolutely ununsed for some months and I don't know if having it just at idle would shorten it's life? I know the best way to do it is just wait to fill the first drive and then add the second but even tough I know it shouldn't be that hard even for an unexperienced user like me, as I said before, I would like to have it already installed.
What do you think? Suggestions? Thank you very much!!

 

[ELMO_2006]

Hi...

You can do that or you can continue to purchase external drives as so required.

 

[John_VanKirk]

Hi there,

Installing the > 2.2GB HDD's can be tricky, and a lot depends on your BIOS, OS, drivers and hard drive. For example the Seagate 3 TB HDD is set up to inately present you with a 2.2TB and 800GB separate disks rather than a single large volume. The 2 TB drives are easy because NTFS can address them.

Here is a good article on "Everything you want to know about 3TB HDDs" that might help in your decision

http://www.pcworld.com/article/235088/everything_you_need_to_know_about_3TB_hard_drives.html

 

[danny2000]

You could use the hard drive as a back-up which seems like you probably need if you are filling-up 3tb drives in short periods of time.

 

[faive123]

Thank you very much for your ideas and suggestions. About my question in terms of affecting the lifespan or durability of the second 3TB storage drive being not used in the forthcoming 6-8 months and just staying there on my PC, should I be concerned about it? Thanks!

 

[John_VanKirk]

Thank you very much for your ideas and suggestions. About my question in terms of affecting the lifespan or durability of the second 3TB storage drive being not used in the forthcoming 6-8 months and just staying there on my PC, should I be concerned about it? Thanks!

Hi again,

No, there's nothing to worry about having them "in stock". They don't wear or age just being there. The wear occurs with starting and stopping, spinning, and head movement, all of which aren't a factor for you. When I set up a computer, and have say an extra HDD to use later, I don't connect the power cable so it's just there. If you were to connect the power cable, then even though you didn't use it for data storage, it would wear in starting, spinning all day, and stopping. You can hook up the SATA data cable if you want, because it is mute when the electronics are sleeping.

 

[faive123]

Hi again,

No, there's nothing to worry about having them "in stock". They don't wear or age just being there. The wear occurs with starting and stopping, spinning, and head movement, all of which aren't a factor for you. When I set up a computer, and have say an extra HDD to use later, I don't connect the power cable so it's just there. If you were to connect the power cable, then even though you didn't use it for data storage, it would wear in starting, spinning all day, and stopping. You can hook up the SATA data cable if you want, because it is mute when the electronics are sleeping.

Thank you very much for your answer. I'm going to follow your advise!

 

[faive123]

Best answer selected by faive123.