Choosing a New Hard Disk

The hard drive is an important piece of hardware for your computer. Whether you are looking at a primary hard drive or a 2nd disk, it is important to make a good choice. Besides the information below, I would recommend buying a good brand such as Western Digital or Seagate.

Type

Unless you have an older computer, you are most likely going to need a SATA hard drive. SATA is the best bang for your buck when it comes to what type of hard drive type you should look at. For the most part, you may not have too many choices when it comes to connection type. You just need to make sure that the hard drive you purchase is compatible with your motherboard. If you have an older computer, you may need an IDE hard drive which was a very popular hard drive a few years ago.

Size

The size of a hard drive is another thing you need to think about when purchasing a new hard drive. Programs, music, and videos are all becoming larger in size. Due to this, you want to make sure you get enough disk space for your needs. If you download a lot of music and videos, you probably want a large hard drive. Also, if you need to install a large number of programs and games, then you will want a decent size hard drive. I would recommend at least a 250 GB hard drive as a base. If you have a lot of music, video, and pictures, you should go even larger than this. A 500 GB hard drive is very affordable now.

Speed and Cache

When it comes to performance of a hard drive, there are a few key statistics to look at. One thing to look at is the size of the hard drive cache. The larger the cache, the better. Three other key performance indicators to look at are average seek time, average write time, and average latency. With these, the lower the times, the better. In general, the higher the RPM of a hard drive, the lower the seek, write, and latency times will be. It can be expensive, however, to purchase a hard drive with an RPM over 7200. Western Digital makes a 10,000 RPM SATA hard drive called the Raptor that has gotten many good reviews. This will increase the overall performance of your computer but you will also pay more for it.

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-By Dominic

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