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Are you ready to make the plunge with a big new hard drive for your PC?
Here are PC World's recommendations for what you should consider, both
before you buy the drive and when you're actually shopping.
Do you have a newer PC? Newer PCs take better advantage of a new drive's
increased performance and capacity. A system with a slow CPU and limited
RAM won't be able to use the full performance potential of a new drive.
With a really old PC, you're nearing the point of diminishing returns,
where putting any money into it may be a poor investment. However, if your
computer is still working acceptably for you, it may be worthwhile to
increase its storage capacity. Older PCs may need both a PCI interface
card to get the best drive performance and a vendor-supplied driver to be
able to recognize the full capacity of large drives.
Make sure there's space in the case. Most desktop PC cases have at least
one, and sometimes several, internal drive bays--places where you can
mount extra hard drives. But check your manual (or open the case); some of
the smaller low-profile cases don't have room for additional internal
drives, in which case you won't be able to use both the old and new drive
at the same time.
Oversize your purchase. It's smart to buy a drive with more capacity than
you think you'll need. If you're absolutely sure that you won't be using
multimedia-intensive applications (such as editing video or storing
digital photos or MP3 audio files) that eat up huge amounts of space, you
might not need the largest-capacity drives. Anticipate your future needs
when deciding on the size of your new drive, especially if you plan to
keep your existing PC for a couple of years.
Match the drive and interface speed. The ATA/100 and ATA/133 interfaces of
current drives are often faster than the internal interfaces of a PC,
especially if the system is more than a year old. (Check your PC manual or
contact your computer vendor to make sure.) An easy-to-install interface
card (about $50) can ensure that you get maximum performance from your new
drive.
Look for bargains. Competition among hard-drive makers is intense, and
dealers often run specials that allow you to pick up a new drive for an
amazingly low price. But these deals tend to be on smaller-capacity
drives. Don't expect specials on the largest-capacity drives--they're
often in short supply, so they sell at close to list price until the next
generation of drives appears.
Buy a kit. Hard drive kits include mounting hardware, cables, detailed
instructions, and (often) software that eases installation. If you're
buying via mail order, be sure you're getting the kit. The alternative is
a "bare drive," essentially just a drive in a box, often with no
instructions except a technical data sheet. Bare drives can be a bargain
for experienced PC users, however, and plenty of online installation help
is available.
Use add-on software. Power users who purchase a bare drive and aren't
running Windows XP will need extra software to ease the process of
integrating the new hard drive into their PCs. Even if you buy a packaged
drive upgrade kit, software such as PowerQuest's $50 DriveCopy or $80
PartitionMagic or V-Com's $50 DriveWorks can save you time and allow you
to fine-tune how data is stored on your new drive.
Consider an external drive. External drives are handy if you need to lock
up important data when you're not at your computer, or if you need to
transport a lot of data. But they cost quite a bit more than internal
drives and usually require an additional FireWire or USB 2.0 interface
card. (Although you can hook up a USB 2.0 drive to a USB 1.1 port, you
won't realize the kind of improved performance you expect from a new
drive.)
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