# Questions about adding second hard drive to my desktop



## Indiana627 (Nov 18, 2005)

I've got a Dell Inspiron 530 that I bought in 2007. I use Vista home premium SP2. It's got Intel core 2 6420 @2.13GHz each and 2 GB RAM. It came with a 320GB drive that's now nearly full with videos of the kids. I've been reading through the manual for it on Dell's site and it says it will support up to two serial ATA hard drives. I'd like to add a second drive just to use for storage and keep all program files and OS on the current drive. I'm pretty sure I can handle adding the drive since I used to do stuff like this at my old job sometimes, but it's been quite a while.

I have a few questions:

What brands are better? Which brands should I stay away from? I've been using a Western drive in my D* DVR eSata drive for over 3 years now with no problems.
Will the data and power cables be included with the drive? Or do I need to buy them separately?
Anything else I should be aware of? Thanks for the help.


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

If you dont want super fast speed, any 5400 or variable speed 2TB drive will work. I have a mix of Western Digital and Seagates in my server. No problems from either. Had one Samsung drive that failed miserably. 

If you buy a white box drive off the web, the cables are usually not included. If you buy a retail box, the data cable usually is, it should say on the box. The computer power supply itself should have a spare power cable if its specs claim expandability. If not, you will need an adapter to convert an available connector (if not SATA) to a sata connector.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

There's not many brands these days to choose from, most have through various mergers gone into Western Digital or Seagate. I generally go Seagate, but I've had unusually bad luck with Western Digital, except most of my DVRs.


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## 4HiMarks (Jan 21, 2004)

I have had a lot of bad luck with WD as well. I usually try to go with Hitachi.


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## WestDC (Feb 9, 2008)

You could stick with WD -and migrate your OS and all your current data to a larger WD Drive-Using their free Acronis software.

Then you can swap out the drive with all your DATA and put it away as a Achive current to date.

Then keep loading your 1 tb or 2TB drive until that gets full.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

4HiMarks said:


> I have had a lot of bad luck with WD as well. I usually try to go with Hitachi.


And guess who is buying Hitachi? After that merger and Samsung into Seagate, there pretty much is literally 3 left: WD, Seagate and Toshiba (which I don't think makes many desktop PC drives).


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## dmspen (Dec 1, 2006)

If I were you, I'd also pop for an OEM version of Win7. Load it on the new drive then make your old drive the slave.


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## Indiana627 (Nov 18, 2005)

I went to BB today just to see what they had and ended up making in impulse purchase, which is not something I usually do. I got the Seagate Barracude 1TB kit for $70. They had the 500GB kit too, but it was $60, so I figured for $10 more why not get twice the space. It included both data and power cables.

I bought it over the WD drives since those were just drives with no cables. Plus I didn't understand all the different Caviar color codes (green, blue, black) of the WDs.

Are the Barracudas pretty good? Did I make a bad impulse purchase?

Also, looking through the manual there's a section about using this 3Gb/sec drive with older 1.5Gb/sec systems. It says if my system doesn't support 3Gb/sec (my PC is a Dell Inspiron 530 bought 4 years ago) that I'll have to apply a jumper onto the drive to force the drive into 1.5Gb mode. How do I determine my PCs SATA speed?


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## Indiana627 (Nov 18, 2005)

Any ideas about my PC's SATA card being 3.0GB/sec or 1.5Gb/sec? Was hoping to clear that up before cracking it open and installing the Barracuda drive. Thanks.


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## dennisj00 (Sep 27, 2007)

Go to support.dell.com with your service tag and see what they say about the motherboard and drive speed. It's probably a 1.5.


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## Shades228 (Mar 18, 2008)

$70 for everything isn't a bad price. You might have saved $10 or so going online but you'd have to wait. 

Don't worry if you have a 3gb HD and a 1.5 MB it will scale down fine.

I would probably clone the drives and then format the 320 to use as a storage drive. Two reasons: First one is mainly because it's new so it "should" last longer before failing. The second reason is it's probably a faster drive/quieter drive than the OEM they put in at build time.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Seagate's drives, especially 7200.11 and 7200.12, are the worst drives on a market.


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## Indiana627 (Nov 18, 2005)

P Smith said:


> Seagate's drives, especially 7200.11 and 7200.12, are the worst drives on a market.


What do you mean by 7200.11 and 7200.12? I assume 7200 is the speed, but what is the .11 and .12? And why are they the worst?


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## Indiana627 (Nov 18, 2005)

Shades228 said:


> Don't worry if you have a 3gb HD and a 1.5 MB it will scale down fine.


If I have 1.5, then won't I need to install a jumper on the new drive like the manual says in order for it to work? Where do I get this jumper?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

It's a drive's model (technical, not marketing), sometimes it's known as Barracuda.
Look at the drive's label.

Worst because high %% of bad drives. Try without the jumper - usually SATA controller and SATA drives can talk and auto negotiate the speed.


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## Indiana627 (Nov 18, 2005)

P Smith said:


> It's a drive's model (technical, not marketing), sometimes it's known as Barracuda. Look at the drive's label. Worst because high %% of bad drives.


What drives would you recommend?


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## dmspen (Dec 1, 2006)

I've owned about 10 or so Western Digitals as well as a Seagate, Hitachi and some others. The WDs have never failed me, except for one electronics issue. I did have one Seagate fail completely.

Of course, everyone's experience will be different.

I currently have 2 external WD drives I use as external storage with my DISH receivers. They've basically been powered up and working for over 2 years.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Indiana627 said:


> What drives would you recommend?


For desktops - WDC, perhaps Samsung, Hitachi ...


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## Indiana627 (Nov 18, 2005)

Indiana627 said:


> Any ideas about my PC's SATA card being 3.0GB/sec or 1.5Gb/sec?





dennisj00 said:


> Go to support.dell.com with your service tag and see what they say about the motherboard and drive speed. It's probably a 1.5.


I did but I don't see anything listed about my motherboard and/or drive speed. At least not that I can decipher. Does anyone else determine my speed from this?

Ship Date:	8/2/2007
1	DJ301	Kit, Mouse, Universal Serial Bus, 2BTN, Optical, Lead Free Black
1	Y9457	Card, Controller, 1394A, PC Interface, Full Height, Adaptec Lead Free
1	RH659	Keyboard, 104, UNIVERSAL SERIAL BUS..., UNITED STATES..., Black, DARFON ELECTRONICS, CORP...
2	U8622	Dual In-Line Memory Module, 1G 667M, 128X64, 8, 240, 2RX8
1	NT424	Assembly, Cable, FLEX-BAY MNTW/SLTW
1	WY345	Assembly, Flash Storage Device Universal Serial Bus, Reader Half Height, BARE, Teac
1	WY379	Assembly, COMPACT DISK READ WRITE/DIGITAL VIDEO DISK DRIVE COMBO..., 48X, Half Height, BARE, Hitachi Lg Data Storage
1	WX094	Card, Graphics, 258, 8600 MRMGA+3B
1	JF495	Modem, V.92, Data Fax, Internal SON2, Lead Free, Dell Americas Organization
1	XU819	Hard Drive, 320G, S2, 7.2K, 16M Unleaded, Seagate-GL
1	GX940	Assembly, Cable, 1394, Mini Tower
1	HX876	Assembly, DVD+/-RW..., 16X, Half Height, BARE, Hitachi Lg Data Storage
1	DC094	Assembly, Cable, Serial Ata Optical, Matrix, smith, mini Tower
1	HX425	Kit, Software, Overpack, VHP32 A01, Digital Video Disk Drive England
1	KP203	Processor, E6420, 2.13, 4M, Core Duo-Conroe, Burn 2
1	WN585	INSTRUCTION..., DEVIATE L6 TO L5+, Pentium 4 Prescott DT, 3.0GHZ, 1 MEGB, 800FSB...


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## Indiana627 (Nov 18, 2005)

P Smith said:


> For desktops - WDC, perhaps Samsung, Hitachi ...


So you'd go with something like this then?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136073

But then I'd need to buy the interface cable and power cable separately right? Both those cables came with the Barracuda.


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## Indiana627 (Nov 18, 2005)

What about just getting an external drive that I can connect via USB? What's the pros/cons of that solution?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

It would slow down processing big video files (all of them are big) and you will hard time with power brick/heating/mess of USB cables abound your desktop ... If you could install in inside and you don't need move it around or to friends, stick with internal.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Indiana627 said:


> So you'd go with something like this then?
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136073
> 
> But then I'd need to buy the interface cable and power cable separately right? Both those cables came with the Barracuda.


Yes, but personally, I would go for 2 TB (better ration GB/$). Or use two in a mirror in case of failure and important data (say someone's video what you do help processing).


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Indiana627 said:


> I did but I don't see anything listed about my motherboard and/or drive speed. At least not that I can decipher. Does anyone else determine my speed from this?
> 
> Ship Date:	8/2/2007
> 1	DJ301	Kit, Mouse, Universal Serial Bus, 2BTN, Optical, Lead Free Black
> ...


If you will tell me what chipset (run free program CPU-Z) is inside ...
But on second look, it's using E6420 C2 processor - it should be MB with SATA ports supporting 3 Gbps .


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## Indiana627 (Nov 18, 2005)

Here's the CPU-Z report. Is this the screen you needed?


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## mstanka (Jan 26, 2003)

That drive that you purchased will be fine. I have the same system and recently had a HDD failure and just popped the drive in and reloaded my image, and all is good. This system supports 3.0gb/s.

Michael.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Indiana627 said:


> Here's the CPU-Z report. Is this the screen you needed?


Nope -> second tab: Mainboard


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

I have two seagate barracuda's. One in my server, and one in my HR24-500. Both work just fine. So do the WD's for that matter. Your drive should automatically slow down if your mb only supports 1.5. They just put the jumper on there in case, in a rare case, you have to force it.


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## Indiana627 (Nov 18, 2005)

P Smith said:


> Nope -> second tab: Mainboard


Here you go. But I've since gotten reassurances that it is 3.0 GB/sec.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Yes, it is support the speed and more: http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/matrixstorage_sb.htm


> Intel® ICH10R, ICH9R, ICH9DO
> Six port SATA controller with RAID, eSATA, and port multiplier support, providing storage benefits of Intel® Matrix Storage Technology, Intel® Rapid Recover Technology, and Intel® Turbo Memory


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## Indiana627 (Nov 18, 2005)

Great - thanks!


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## Indiana627 (Nov 18, 2005)

OK so I'm thinking of buying a WD drive from newegg, but I know I'll need to buy the sata cable separately (whereas it is included with the Barracuda drive). My problem is, I have no idea which sata cable to buy. I'd like to get it from newegg too so I only have to pay shipping once, but I don't know which one to pick. Can you guys help me out?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...cablessubcat001-_-flashstorefront-_-sataesata


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

SATA cable are selling everywhere - take any, but better buy with a lock.


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## klang (Oct 14, 2003)

Indiana627 said:


> OK so I'm thinking of buying a WD drive from newegg, but I know I'll need to buy the sata cable separately (whereas it is included with the Barracuda drive). My problem is, I have no idea which sata cable to buy. I'd like to get it from newegg too so I only have to pay shipping once, but I don't know which one to pick. Can you guys help me out?
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...cablessubcat001-_-flashstorefront-_-sataesata


Why not just install the Seagate you already bought?


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## Indiana627 (Nov 18, 2005)

A lot of the opinions I've been getting are that WDs are better, so I wanted to explore that route. I went back to BB today and the only sata cable they sell is their Dynex brand for $20. So once I add that price to the cost of the WD drive, it's about the same price of the Barracuda. I haven't ruled out installing the Barracuda, and in fact I may be leaning more towards doing just that after today. All those cables on newegg just confused me and if I bought one, I wanted to make sure to get the right one.


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## sideswipe (Dec 4, 2008)

pretty much any of those cables are fine, you can search for free shipping to save $ on them or this looked like a good choice (just a quick scan)

I recommend reading the newegg reviews (not all but scan through them as some are well over 1000) on both the harddrive you bought @ BB vs. the one you like on newegg, is it enough to cause you to change your mind?

installation is a breeze, you got a power adapter with the one from seagate you may have a spare connection on your power supply anyway & not be needed crack your case open & see what you have.


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## Indiana627 (Nov 18, 2005)

I finally got around to installing the Barracuda drive I had bought 3 weeks ago. I kept looking for deals on the WD drives, but to get the same size (1TB) in WD was going to be more and I just couldn't justify it. The Barracuda installed real easy and is up and running. Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for your advice. Thanks.


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