Need help choosing a hard drive from OcUK!

alexjholland

alexjholland

alexjholland

Associate
Joined
8 Oct 2006
Posts
322
Hey,

I am pretty computer literate and happy with opening my PC up to replace RAM etc, but am inexperiences with hard drives (so do not understand the different formats/connections) and need to make an upgrade.

I have my 4 year old Pentium 4 connected on a cabled network share with my XBox 360 - to which I stream 720p/1080p 5.1 movies in the XVid format with AC3 encoding, which works beautifully.

My movie collection is growing too large and I need something big - at least 1 terrabyte - and I want it internally fitted.

My PC has a 200Gb HD that has 'Serial ATA' written on it and there is a space above it in the bay that appeared to be for something else roughly the same size.

There also appears to be a spare power cable attachment, but on initial inspection I don't see any cables for connecting the HD to the motherboard (perhaps they are bundled with the HD?)

- Firstly, what kind of hard drive from the OcUK range can I use with my PC?

- If I need to provide any more information or pictures, let me know.

- Assuming I can use any, would this Samsung EcoGreen F2 1.5TB SATA-II 32MB Cache do a good job?

My rationale is that it is the cheapest 1.5Tb and that the price difference between that and 1Tb is small - unlike the £25+ jump for 2Tb.

- Is there anything technical regarding this hard drive that would not make it a reliable disc to be filled with my music and movies - to be streamed in high definition/5.1 to my PC on a regular basis?

- Are factors such as 5400rpm and 32mb cache likely to be insufficient for my high definition streaming needs?

Thank you for your help!
 
Last edited:
Yep any large drive like that will be fine. Drives tend to be OEM, which means they don't come with cables - just the bare drive. You need to check you have a spare SATA data cable (the small 1cm wide ribbon going to the motherboard) and SATA power cable (thin black connector). The power cable maybe part of a bundle of other cables tied up near the power supply which you can feed down. The data cable you will need to add in extra if you don't have one, so just add one to the order.

Once the disk is installed, you will need to go to Control Panel -> Admin tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management and right click the new disk and initialise it, as it won't show up in My Computer until then.
 
Duke said:
Yep any large drive like that will be fine. Drives tend to be OEM, which means they don't come with cables - just the bare drive. You need to check you have a spare SATA data cable (the small 1cm wide ribbon going to the motherboard) and SATA power cable (thin black connector). The power cable maybe part of a bundle of other cables tied up near the power supply which you can feed down. The data cable you will need to add in extra if you don't have one, so just add one to the order.

Once the disk is installed, you will need to go to Control Panel -> Admin tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management and right click the new disk and initialise it, as it won't show up in My Computer until then.
Click to expand...

Indeed.

Plus that F2 drive will be fine with steaming - I stream from my PC that uses Western Digital Green 1 TB drives (effectively same specs / tech as the one you linked) and never had any issues.

As Duke says, just make sure you have spare connectors and SATA slot on your mobo (or you could just replace your current SATA low sized one I suppose if all else fails)
 
Hey, thanks for the swift advice.

- How much do connectors cost? If you can link me to some that would be appropriate and they are cheap, I'll buy them to be safe.

- I was going to ask about a spare SATA slot. If I take a torch, I suppose I follow the 1cm ribbon cable (is that SATA?) to the motherboard and check a similiar fitting to the one it terminates with is next to it?
 
I just re-read and am confused, are there 3 cables?

- Power cable
- Sata power cable
- Data cable

I believe the powercable block is hanging down (same as going into my current HD) but think all other cables will need purchasing if you can recommend.

Also, should it be any extra strain on my 320W PSU which has the 200gig, a soundblaster soundcard/interface and a 7600GT?
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom