Suggestions for a New 2nd HD

[Chewy]

Pata ide since there's no serial controller on that version of the dell 4600

other ones:

It includes a big 120GB SATA hard drive

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1366801,00.asp

local sales usually feature the pata drives anyway
my choice is seagate, WD then hitachi then maxtor(my old favorite)
warranty is my chief concern, price second, reputation varies so much
and is unreliable

something to think about is a controller card for the hard drives and having the optical standalone masters
takes 4 ribbon cables tho

[Dr Klovernutz]

Im sorry
I am still somewhat confused
I am looking for a ATA (SATA vs PATA?)
7200rpm

controller cards and extra ribbons?


is internal better than extrernal (they are about the same price)
I don't think I have a firewire port so I'll use a USB IF i decide on an external.

what do u think?

[Chewy]

no sata(serial ata)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Submit=ENE&N=2010150014+1035907789+1035307873&Subcategory=14&description=&srchInDesc=&minPrice=&maxPrice=

[NightTran]

Thanks Chewy, I got the part I need from this site,Bracket for few dell hard drive, if I got my raid card work for the optical ( if I know how), can I add one more HD, one and two as primary ( master and slave), third is secondary master, is serial ATA still work?

[Chewy]

if you already have a pata hard drive then I would get a pata controller card and just put hard drives on that, even the boot drive, just plug in the card in a pci slot(not the top one), load the drivers, shut down. Move cable for boot drive to card then go into bios and set scuzzi(?)/different with each bios to boot, add more drives/cables to card. Few cards support atapi(optical) drive right. But they go on the primary and secondary ide controllers on the motherboard.

[NightTran]

I dont have PATA, if I can I will stick with ATA, I assume serial is mean serrial with another ATA , will the Ultra ATA work in this case? master and stand alone

I still confuse the diff. meanning

Thanks

[Chewy]

ata(ata100 &ata133) ide and pata are all the same, that's what almost all hard drives have been the last 4-5 years, about 2 years ago serial came out,
that's Sata(SerialATA), sata cable is a thin narrow cable, pata(ribbon cables)
are wide and flat with the exception of special round ones.

google is your friend

[Dr Klovernutz]

Man this is confusing
Is RAID something I am looking for?

opinions on extrenal HD (I am thinking that this will be easier)
what are the pros and cons of internal vs external

[Chewy]

external is more expensive, much slower, especially usb and takes a lot more cpu, works good for mobility and laptops.

most of the better controller cards are raid but not really needed for your application, match identical hard drives for best uses.

here's a cheaper but good one

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816115009

[Dr Klovernutz]

so a card is not necessary.

All i need to buy is just a HD and mounting screws????

[Chewy]

just an oem drive(they come with screws usually), jumper as slave and put in middle position on cable

[Dr Klovernutz]

thank you so much......

I took the info you gave and did some googling and I am able to better understand how HD are classified.

Chewie, YOU ARE THE BEST!!!

[eric545]

Dr.

Even the newest computers still have IDE connectors on the motherboard.

Take a look inside of your computer and see how many devices are connected via a wide ribbon cable. In most cases if you have not added another hard drive as yet, you will probably have your primary drive (C:\) connected to IDE 1 as the Master which means you can add another drive to that cable and jumpered as the slave.

In the last few weeks I have picked up a number of 300GB Maxtor 7200RPM 16MB of cache from Staples. Staples had them on sale for $129.99 and a $30.00 rebate for a total of $99.00 plus tax. All those drives I purchased were in Retail Boxes.

I am out of town at the moment however; the day before I left, I saw an add for Fry's Electronics in San Diego offering the same 300GB Maxtor Retail Box for $129.00 with an instant rebate of $30.00 making the price a flat: $99.99.

Since I don't live close enough to San Diego to make the purchase worth while, I went online to Outpost.com (Fry's web sales site) and found the same drive for $89.99 with free shipping. Including tax I only paid a little less than $97.00 for that last drive which I will keep on a shelf as a replacement should one of the 7 Maxtor 300GB drives fail.

Watch the Sales circulars in your Sunday Newspaper as Office Depot, Staples, CompUSA, OfficeMax, Best Buy and or Circuit City have pretty good bargins every week. You only have to look.

Eric