freedom_12
New member
There is very little to say about Hard Drives that most people on this site don't know already however, if you happen to be completely unaware, your hard drive is the backing storage device which holds most of the data on your your computer. Needless to say, it helps to buy a decent one. With memory prices being relatively low, a HDD shouldn't realistically cost you more than £170-200 at the very most (you can pick up a 160Gb SATA HDD from Tekheads.co.uk for around £25.)
As this is my first guide and, to be honest, im no expert anyway, ill keep it short.
Capacity
Drives these days range from around 100Gb to a Terabyte. It all depends on how much you think you need. For most users, I would say that 200-300Gb would be more than enough, in fact, 160 would probably do. However, if you do need a lot of space or just want it, there are 700Gb HDDs on the market for £100.
RPM
RPM or Revolutions Per Minute is the amount of full rotations your hard disk completes in a minute (yeah...). Basically, the faster the disk spins, the faster it can find data. I wouldn't recommend buying anything below 7200 RPM, although there are 4200 and 5400 RPM disks on the market. For users wanting top-end performance, 10000 RPM is the way to go. Drives with higher RPM tend to have lower capacities than the largest HDDs.
According to SuB, The higher the RPM, the more noise the HDD will put out, so if you need a mix of high performance and low noise levels, I would again recommend a 7200 RPM drive.
Cache
The hard disk's cache memory is its 'temporary memory,' where recently used data is stored, in a place easier to access than it's permananent place in the backing storage. Cache sizes on the market normally range from 2-32 Mb. 16 - 32Mb would be the normal size for most mid-range to high-end HDDs these days.
Interface
SATA can allow the use of less wires, hot swapping and better performance. Most motherboards these days have SATA connectors for HDDs and I wouldn't recommend buying an IDE hard drive.
Size
The physical size of HDDs used in desktops are normally 2.5" (generally used in laptops) or 3.5". As far as I know, it just depends on what case you're using, though it's likely I'm wrong.The measurments refer to disk diameter rather than the size of the casing.
Platters
The platter holds the data in the drive and is made out of two materials: one 'substrate' to provide rigidity and structure and a magnetic media coating to hold the data. Hard drives can have one or more platter. The size or the platter(s) normally determines the dimensions of the HDD. The smaller the platter, the less noise and heat it gives out and the faster data can be accessed however, less data can be stored on a smaller platter.
Well known Manufacturers include Seagate (or Maxtor) and Western Digital. Technological companies like Hitachi, Samsung and Fujitsu also produce quality hard disks. These names good places to start when buying disks and if you're looking for a high-end HDD, consider the Western Digital Raptor range, which are very high quality, expensive HDDs.
Those are really most of the factors involved when buying your first HDD. Have fun.
As this is my first guide and, to be honest, im no expert anyway, ill keep it short.
Capacity
Drives these days range from around 100Gb to a Terabyte. It all depends on how much you think you need. For most users, I would say that 200-300Gb would be more than enough, in fact, 160 would probably do. However, if you do need a lot of space or just want it, there are 700Gb HDDs on the market for £100.
RPM
RPM or Revolutions Per Minute is the amount of full rotations your hard disk completes in a minute (yeah...). Basically, the faster the disk spins, the faster it can find data. I wouldn't recommend buying anything below 7200 RPM, although there are 4200 and 5400 RPM disks on the market. For users wanting top-end performance, 10000 RPM is the way to go. Drives with higher RPM tend to have lower capacities than the largest HDDs.
According to SuB, The higher the RPM, the more noise the HDD will put out, so if you need a mix of high performance and low noise levels, I would again recommend a 7200 RPM drive.
Cache
The hard disk's cache memory is its 'temporary memory,' where recently used data is stored, in a place easier to access than it's permananent place in the backing storage. Cache sizes on the market normally range from 2-32 Mb. 16 - 32Mb would be the normal size for most mid-range to high-end HDDs these days.
Interface
SATA can allow the use of less wires, hot swapping and better performance. Most motherboards these days have SATA connectors for HDDs and I wouldn't recommend buying an IDE hard drive.
Size
The physical size of HDDs used in desktops are normally 2.5" (generally used in laptops) or 3.5". As far as I know, it just depends on what case you're using, though it's likely I'm wrong.The measurments refer to disk diameter rather than the size of the casing.
Platters
The platter holds the data in the drive and is made out of two materials: one 'substrate' to provide rigidity and structure and a magnetic media coating to hold the data. Hard drives can have one or more platter. The size or the platter(s) normally determines the dimensions of the HDD. The smaller the platter, the less noise and heat it gives out and the faster data can be accessed however, less data can be stored on a smaller platter.
Well known Manufacturers include Seagate (or Maxtor) and Western Digital. Technological companies like Hitachi, Samsung and Fujitsu also produce quality hard disks. These names good places to start when buying disks and if you're looking for a high-end HDD, consider the Western Digital Raptor range, which are very high quality, expensive HDDs.
Those are really most of the factors involved when buying your first HDD. Have fun.
that you need two hdds then. there are many arrays and so on 
and that was because his new system had a mobo that supported RAID so he thought he had to have 'special' RAID hard drives 
