DELL Destop: Increasing hard drives from 500Gb to 1Tb. Easy? Where?

Dinarius

I have a Dell desktop with three internal hard drives.

The C: drive is 250Gb and is big enough for what it contains.

However, I also have 2 x 500Gb partitioned hard drives and they are too small. I use them for digital imaging (one for raw files, one for edited files)

I copy the contents of both onto 1Tb external HDs - 2 copies each.

At the end of each year I have two external HD copies of each drive (4 external HDs in total) and I then clear the internal HDs and start again.

My problem is that about three quarters way through the year both internal drives fill up and I have to start emptying them sooner than I would like.

Can I have the drives replaced with 2 x 1Tb drives?

Is it straightforward?

Where could I have it done in Dublin southside?

Thanks.

D.

bhickey

Once you've indentified the type of hard drives that you want to swap out (most likely SATA), then changing them isn't a whole lot more difficult than changing a cartridge in a printer : power off, disconnect the drive cables, swap in the new drives, reconnect the cables, power up and format the new drives.

While you're at it though why not go mad and just get 2x 2TB drives instead of the 1GB ones?

Dinarius

Thanks for the very prompt reply!

So, if it's easy then.......

1. Best make of HD to install?

2. Best type of HD to install? Taking into account speed etc.....

3. Where should I buy them?

This is my livelihood, so I don't mind the expense. I just want them to be the best they can be.

Thanks again.

D.

bhickey

Dinarius wrote: »

1. Best make of HD to install?

Western Digital, Samsung, Seagate, any of them really

2. Best type of HD to install? Taking into account speed etc.....

If you need a bit more speed then get 7200rpm drives (if speed isn't the most important thing then I'd prefer 5400rpm drives).

3. Where should I buy them?

Dabs.ie, Komplett.ie or any of the big online suppliers.

Overheal

Are your externals then stored locally or do you keep them somewhere else?

Dinarius

Locally. In the attic and in my (home) office.

I have an account with DABS.ie

Here's a link to the relevant 2Tb page.

http://www.dabs.ie/category/components-and-storage,hard-drives,internal-hard-drives/11154-52450000-52770000#filters

Some of the drives are suspiciously cheap, some are very expensive.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

D.

bhickey

Dinarius wrote: »

Some of the drives are suspiciously cheap, some are very expensive.

I've already linked to 2 examples from Dabs in the above post.

Storagereview is a good comparison & review site if you want to go into serious detail.

Overheal

Dinarius wrote: »

Some of the drives are suspiciously cheap, some are very expensive.

The top 4 from left to right:

7200 rpm 32mb cache - big, fast. But, possibly noisy.

Green means low energy, quiet - but for all the specs they give (environmental tolerances? lol) They cleverly don't mention it's only 5400 rpm. But, thats nothing to be ashamed of, in all fairness. Why they hide this i dont know. the 4th one is much like this one jsut a little smaller

The third one is fast with a fat 64mb cache. It's fairly beastly, without actually being a Raptor or spinning at 10k rpm.


My recommendation is a Seagate Barracuda. They're plenty fast and pretty damn quiet.

Dinarius

Doh!

Silly me. Thanks.

I just ran Belarc and each drive is ST35000620AS ATA.

Can you tell whether that's 5400 or 7200? Not that it really matters. I think I'll go for the 7200 that you suggested.

Thanks again.

D.

bhickey

Dinarius wrote: »

ST35000620AS ATA. Can you tell whether that's 5400 or 7200?

Looks like 7200RPM but the newer ones would probably be quicker.

Dinarius

Overheal,

In the DABS link, I wasn't referring to the top four on the screen - those are their choices.

I was simply asking for suggestions from the list of 25 drives below.

Apologies for any confusion.

D.

Dinarius

Read two excellent reviews of the WD Caviar Black, so just ordered two of them.

Many thanks guys!

D.

I will be back when it comes to installing them!

Dinarius

The HDs arrived this morning.

Prepare to be quizzed!

D.

Edited: As bhickey wrote above, fitting the HDs is simple. At least one of them is. However, the other one is hard to get at. It's sitting under the DVD/CD drives. In addition, I've just discovered that my scratch disk is actually 50Gb of one of the two 500Gb drives that I'm replacing. (I use the scratch disk for extra RAM for Photoshop). I would want 50Gb of one of the new drives given over to a new scratch disk.

So, on balance, I think it's better if I get someone to fit the drives. Which brings me to my final question.......

Anyone know a PC doctor (Dublin Southside, preferably) who can do this?

Cuddlesworth

Would you consider three 2tb drives? Its doubtful your system couldn't contain four drives in total. You would use one 2tb drive for raw files, and the other two in a Raid 1 set up. This would allow a good level of redundancy for edited works.

As for work southside, lol. You can do it yourself. Its a simple matter of unplugging two cables, removing the drives, adding the new drives, plugging back in the cables, booting up, disk management, format drives. The drives have green stripped screwed into the sides of them. Pull them out by pulling them together and pulling towards you. Then unscrew and re-screw into new drives.

Three minutes max. Raid might take you five if your new to computers. Although you would need to source a new sata cable and unsure there is power there.

Whats the model of your desktop? Dell workstation?

MC_G

What OS are you using? It should only be about two or three clicks to set your page file/virtual memory/scratch disk to the new drive.

It's basically control panel > system > advanced > performance > advanced and then type in the size and location (ie e: f: or g: ) you want in the virtual memory prompt.

Even if you created a dedicated partition on one of the new disks for it, I'd think you'd easily be able to do it yourself.

softdancomputer

MC_G wrote: »

What OS are you using? It should only be about two or three clicks to set your page file/virtual memory/scratch disk to the new drive.

It's basically control panel > system > advanced > performance > advanced and then type in the size and location (ie e: f: or g: ) you want in the virtual memory prompt.

Even if you created a dedicated partition on one of the new disks for it, I'd think you'd easily be able to do it yourself.

For Photoshop scratch disk, you have to do it from program itself; depends on the version you have, you'll find the option in Preferences. You can choose one of thr new hd's, or make a dedicated partion just for this.

Dinarius

Thanks guys. I've got someone to do it for €50.

As I wrote above, one of the drives is very hard to get at, and I don't want to risk screwing up anything in trying to remove it.

As to putting in a third 2Gb drive, I can't see where it would go. There doesn't appear to be any vacant slots. In any case, using one drive for RAW files and one for edited files and copying each to their own external drives on a daily basis has served me well so far.

Thanks for the feedback.

D.

MC_G

softdancomputer wrote: »

For Photoshop scratch disk, you have to do it from program itself; depends on the version you have, you'll find the option in Preferences. You can choose one of thr new hd's, or make a dedicated partion just for this.

That's nice to know! Thanks.

Dinarius

softdancomputer wrote: »

For Photoshop scratch disk, you have to do it from program itself; depends on the version you have, you'll find the option in Preferences. You can choose one of thr new hd's, or make a dedicated partion just for this.

That's exactly what I do.

And that's why I set aside 50Gb from one of the HDs. In addition to having 8Gb RAM.

D.

Dinarius

Update:

Guys,

I finally have the two new 2Tb hard drives. Thanks for suggesting I get 2tb instead of 1Tb!

Now, to make them work.......

I'm on Vista x64bit.

I go Control Panel/Computer Management/Storage/Disk Management and I see the following message.........

"You must initialize a disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it."

Underneath this, both disks are check marked. Then two options.......

"Use the following partition style for the selected disks."

MBR (Master Boot Record)
GPT (GUID Partition Table)

The note underneath this seems to imply that I should use MBR coz GPT isn't recognized by all previous versions of Windows. So, do I just select MBR and click OK?

If so, is that all I have to do?

Do I have to format the drives? If so, quick or slow format? And how do I do that?

Thanks again.

D.

Edited: Sorted. Found the solution here> http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2674-partition-volume-create-new.html