An informational and technical guide to selecting the best hard drive for building a new computer or upgrading a current system.



How to Choose the Right
Hard Drive

IDE vs. SCSI Hard Drives


IDE/ATA
Hard Drives

SCSI
Hard Drives

External
Hard Drives

Fibre Channel Hard Drives

Firewire
IEEE 1394
Hard Drives

USB and Portable
Hard Drives

RAID
Hard Drives

Formatting a Hard Drive

Glossary of Hard Drive Terms

 

 

 

 

   

How to Choose a Quality
Cheap Hard Drive

    Next to the CPU and motherboard, the most critical computer component is the hard drive. A slow hard drive will lessen the apparent speed of even the fastest CPU and will drop the performance of the entire system--sometimes dramatically. Matching the hard drive to your motherboard and CPU will result in better fine tuned system. Also, getting the right hard drive for the type of usage it will receive are important buying decisions. So, how do you determine the best hard drive for your computer? Here are some ideas to keep in mind when choosing your hard drive.

  • Select a hard drive with a capacity of at least 8 GB.
  • Look for a 8 millisecond or less for the average seek time.
  • Buy a hard drive with the fastest and latest IDE or SCSI interface.
  • Make sure that the cabling and interface will support your drive.

    In addition, the following table may help in making the decision on the right hard drive for the way you plan on using your system. All systems do not need the biggest and latest hard drive. Like surfing the Internet with a dial-up modem, the computer is limited to the download speed of the modem. Use the following table as a basic guideline for choosing a hard drive based on the use it will receive.

Hard Drive Usage Table

Computing Use Minimum Size Minimum Speed

Word Processing

8 - 20 GB 5400 rpm
Web Surfing 10 - 20 GB 5400 rpm
Light Gaming 40 GB 7200 rpm
Digital Music 60 GB 5400 rpm
Heavy Gaming 60 - 80 GB 7200 rpm
Graphics/Sound 80 GB 7200 rpm
Digital Video 100 - 120 GB 7200 rpm

 Now that you have an idea about how you will be using your drive and some basic parameters for selecting the right hard drive, it is time to discuss the two major interfaces available for hard drives today--IDE and SCSI. Click on the link below to learn how the two hard drive interfaces differ and their advantages and disadvantages.

Go to IDE vs. SCSI - Which to Choose

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