HD upgrade question

[Tom]

I have one of these in my computer:

Amazon.com: Seagate Barracuda ST3250620AS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Perpendicular Recording Hard Drive: Electronics

Its always full however, and I want to get a bigger drive. Priorities are speed and silence (oh reliability is important, too!)

Will this work as a replacement?

Scan.co.uk: 1TB Western Digital WD10EADS Caviar Green, SATA 3Gb/s, IntelliPower, 32MB Cache, NCQ

 

[Ch3tan]

I'm guessing the majority will tell you to get a samsung f3. Price and performance winner.

 

[old.user4556]

Tom, I have that drive, no complaints so far and definitely snappier than my old Samsung Spinpoint F1 but unsure of the drive Chet mentions (probably better but I didn't have time to shop around).

 

[Tom]

ok ta. Another question, instead of XP I was thinking of putting Windows 7 on instead.

Is it worth it? I have an Core2 Duo E6750 2.66GHz cpu, 2 gig RAM. 8800GT gfx card. I don't want to install it if its as shit as Vista.

 

[old.user4556]

I bought that drive because I was moving to Windows 7 too .

Yes it's worth it, I actually found Vista with the service packs to be great, but Windows 7 is a lot more polished up than Vista is, plus I wanted to move to x64.

One word of warning, 2 GB isn't enough. I've got 2 GB and when you're working with 40+ MB TIFF files in photoshop it soon gets lunched, I'd seriously think about a memory upgrade to at least 4 GB if you're moving to Windows 7.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

Waiting on my new F3, will bring me up to 2TB

Filled this one very quickly.

 

[Moriath]

Thought this was about HD tv upgrades heh try HDD next time

 

[Embattle]

I use a 1TB Samsung F3 as a secondary drive to an SSD but the F3 is very good. The WD Green drive is just as good although while it looses out in speed it probably beats the F3 in terms of noise etc but either way the difference wouldn't probably be noticeable.

 

[Raven]

Got a 1tb F3 too, getting another one soon as I have nearly filled this one up already. Very nice drives for the money.

If you have plenty of money to spend on it and don't need a huge amount of space then you could look at some of the SSDs no sound at all and faster than any standard HDD.

 

[Tom]

Ok I'll get the F3. I'd like to get an SSD but I've barely had any work this year and it'd be silly to spend the money right now.

 

[Tom]

Do you have to piss around with jumpers on HDs still, or is it all auto-magic these days?

 

[Kryten]

It's all magic and voodoo. No jumpers, cardigans or dodgy dresses.

 

[old.user4556]

About time too, makes me think of manual IRQ sort of days.

 

[Tom]

I remember doing that on my Soundblaster 32, with Waveblaster.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

Bring back the days of non-idiot proof hds! Jumpers ftw!

 

[Embattle]

IRQ jumpers...urg.

 

[Kryten]

Funny really, even in the days when you had master, slave and cable select (which is pretty much bung it on and it should work), CS was seen as evil and shite then.

But then again I did quite like the days of Winchester drives - they had 5 jumpers on them and another 20 odd on the full size MFM controller cards

and heh @ soundblasters - what was it, IRQ 7, DMA1?

 

[Wazzerphuk]

IRQ conflicts. Oh the joys.

 

[Tom]

My first pc (a 486sx20) had a massive 85MB hard drive. And 8mb of RAM, half of it from the back of a lorry.

 

[Embattle]

Since Acorns don't count my first PC was the super charged version of the 486SX, I was rather lucky to get a wonderful 486DX2. I remember the motherboard having VESA and ISA slots and I'm not totally sure but I might of had a mighty 120MB HD at the time.

 

[Tom]

Is it possible to turn a drive on or off, in Windows 7? There's probably loads of stuff on my old drive I'll need to access over the next few weeks, but it'll be sporadic access. I'd rather be able to turn it on only when I need it, by clicking a button or something.

 

[Tom]

Since Acorns don't count my first PC was the super charged version of the 486SX, I was rather lucky to get a wonderful 486DX2.

Slag. I bet you had the 66.

 

[Embattle]

I did indeed, really was the power house of the time and remained strong since the P1 60/66 were so bad.

 

[Tom]

Well amazingly Windows 7 works ok, and everything is fine. Not played any games yet though...

 

[old.user4556]

I'm having wanky FLAC woes in Windows 7.

 

[old.user4556]

Just got my extra 4 GB taking me to 6 GB in total, what a difference it's made with Photoshop 64 bit when juggling lots of large TIFFs.

 

[TdC]

Slag. I bet you had the 66.

so did I, and then I had an AMD 100 MHz!! WAAAAN HUUUUNDDDDDRRRRRAAAAADDDDD!!!!!!!

I'm having wanky FLAC woes in Windows 7.

oh? what's up? making or playing (or both?)

 

[Chilly]

Is it possible to turn a drive on or off, in Windows 7? There's probably loads of stuff on my old drive I'll need to access over the next few weeks, but it'll be sporadic access. I'd rather be able to turn it on only when I need it, by clicking a button or something.

mine turns my drives off after inacitivty for a while itself. this is fine as my OS drive is SSD and is instant on./off so no pauses possible there.

 

[Panda On Smack]

What SSD drives are people using? Anything affordable yet?

 

[Embattle]

I went for a OCZ Solid 2 at the time, the Intel ones have had a price cut recently and are generally the fastest. I would however say they've stalled on price for the moment as the slump happened so they didn't rush to produce as many as they would have.