Looking for a new internal ~500GB HDD

LVustom on 17/12/2013 - 19:14

I've been wanting an extra HDD for my HP Pavilion Elite m9180a as the existing 500GB isn't really enough.

Here's the product page for me PC if it's needed HP Pavilion Elite m9180a Desktop PC Product Specifications.

Best I've seen so far is a Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200RPM SATA III 3.5 Inch Internal Hard Drive ST500DM002 for $55 (was $99) and the same site has Seagate 750GB 3.5 inch SATA 6Gb/s Desktop Internal Hard Drive ST3750525AS 32MB for $55 (no discount) but I don't see why the 250GB extra HDD is 44 dollars less expensive at retail price, what's the difference and does anyone have a better deal?

Computing Computer Component Hard Drive

Comments

  • scrimshaw on 17/12/2013 - 19:19

    All hard drives are very similar nowadays (in terms of performance) so there's no need to be picky about what you buy. Just buy the best value 7200RPM drive you can find.

    Also note the ST1000DM003 (1 TB capacity) only costs $66 ($11 more expensive) from MSY so there's another thing you want to consider if MSY is within walking or driving distance to you. This is far better value than buying a 500GB drive.

  • Vustom on 17/12/2013 - 19:23

    I live in Tasmania, I don't think there's one here.

    The computer is pretty old, could you or someone else check to see if more SATA hard drives can be added and whether or not it supports SATA III?

    I don't really know too much about hardware specs yet.

    • scrimshaw on 17/12/2013 - 19:28

      Ah. MSY ships. Try calculating shipping and see if it's reasonable.

      Your computer is from 2008 so it would have SATA II ports, and it has 6 ports total and 4 is unoccupied, assuming you have not added additional drives since purchase.

      You can add 4 more. You can even upgrade to a SSD drive to speed up performance — the SATA2 will bottleneck performance but its still many many times faster than a HDD.

      It's up to you which drive you want to buy, 500GB for $55 is OK, but for slightly more you can double to 1000GB.

      • Vustom on 17/12/2013 - 19:30

        Are SATA III hard drives compatible with SATA II ports? If there's no current benefit but will still work I may as well get SATA III with more space for when I get a better computer.

        • scrimshaw on 17/12/2013 - 19:32

          SATAIII drives are backward compatible with earlier SATA revisions but there is absolutely no benefit in a SATA III HDD, as they are not usually fast enough to saturate the 6 gig/s interface.

          SSD's however will make full use of SATA3 and if you are purchasing a SSD, you will want to have a SATA3 capable motherboard to take advantage of it's maximum speed. It's still many many times faster than a HDD though, even on SATA2.

          However all you will find nowadays are SATA 3 drives and SATA2 is getting harder to find, since it's no longer produced or in demand.

        • Vustom on 17/12/2013 - 19:34

          Aw, thanks. I will choose one then.

          What about RAM? I have 3GBs atm but thinking of getting an extra 1GB to put in, how much would that cost for one that's compatible with my system?

        • scrimshaw on 17/12/2013 - 19:37

          3GB of RAM is enough for ordinary usage — net browsing, watching the odd movie, a bit of gaming etc. Adding more memory than you really need will not produce any noticeable gains in performance. Check your Task Manager from time to time and look at the Performance tab, if your memory usage is very high (more than 70%) then perhaps you should add more.

          The problem is that you're using outdated DDR2 memory which is no longer produced.

          You'll have to search on eBay or Gumtree, should be plenty of cheap options there.

          The bottleneck to your system, if you're a general or light user, is not the RAM but your hard drive. An SSD is a more 'noticeable' upgrade, though it costs a lot more..

        • Vustom on 17/12/2013 - 19:47

          When I buy a new computer I'll get a SSD with it, but for now SATA is fine.

          Would this do? Desktop DDR2 Ram 1GB (1x1GB) PC2-6400 800MHz (Samsung/Kingston/Team)

          I normally avg. 2.5GBs memory used of 3GBs available.

        • scrimshaw on 17/12/2013 - 20:37

          That's fine.

        • Woodyg22 on 17/12/2013 - 23:01

          Normally you would want to upgrade RAM in identical pairs to get the best speeds out of them, also worth checking if you have enough RAM slots too.

        • _Bruce_ on 18/12/2013 - 07:00

          Normally you would want to upgrade RAM in identical pairs to get the best speeds out of them

          Just put anything in, not much to back up this claim.

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