Computer Science Canada

looking to buy a new hard drive
Author:  SuperGenius [ Sat May 21, 2005 4:30 pm ]
Post subject:  looking to buy a new hard drive
...i think my computer is still under warranty(dell) so they would have to be involved in some way... but how do i find out what sort of drives my computer is capable of accepting?

there is a spare drive bay (about 1.25 inches tall, the same size as the floppy drive) on the front for sure, but I don't know if there's any other place for it in there.
Author:  wtd [ Sat May 21, 2005 4:57 pm ]
Post subject: 
Pretty much any 7200RPM 3.5" IDE hard drive should work. If you have a fairly new machine, a serial ATA hard drive might also work.
Author:  Lazarus [ Sat May 21, 2005 8:46 pm ]
Post subject: 
Also, you could concider an external drive, it connects from USB or Serial ports. they are larger then internal drives and can hold up to 700 GB I believe, mine is only 500 though so I'm not sure.
Author:  SuperGenius [ Sun May 22, 2005 9:27 am ]
Post subject: 
i want another drive for media files... and a ut2004 install
nothing too big, because I don't want to spend a lot of money

i did some research but all of the material was really out of date (most HDs today are 10-40gigs!)... so which type would be the best, and how do I know which types my computer can use?
Author:  Lazarus [ Sun May 22, 2005 10:28 am ]
Post subject: 
If all you're going to be using it for is music and media, I would personally get a.. what's it called? Flash Drive, mine holds 500 MB, it just connects to your USB port and is small enough to have on your keychain. Mine was 90 Dollars CDN but that was when they first came out.
Author:  Cervantes [ Sun May 22, 2005 10:43 am ]
Post subject: 
Yeah, I've got a 512MB USB key too (40 CAD, heh) but it's certainly not big enough to store all of one's music /multimedia. I'm on dial-up and generally have WAY less multimedia than most people, but 500MB can only hold 1/4 of my music. Sure, the USB key is good for bringing some favourite music into compsci class, but you can't rely on it to store all your multimedia. Also, I wouldn't want to play movies off of it, as it is slower than the harddrive. (Actually, on that note, how fast is the USB 2.0 compared to a 7200RPm hard drive? I'm not sure whether I've got a 2.0 port or a 1.1 port on my computer Confused)
Author:  Lazarus [ Sun May 22, 2005 10:50 am ]
Post subject: 
I'm not sure how fast in comparasin, well I'm assumming you will obviously be needing something for more than music, try garage sales, I find old stuff all the time, usually around 1-6 gb...
You could always go to your local computer store and ask them to hang onto an old one for you when someone brings in there old P1 and wants an upgrade.
Author:  md [ Sun May 22, 2005 12:19 pm ]
Post subject: 
Lazarus wrote:
If all you're going to be using it for is music and media, I would personally get a.. what's it called? Flash Drive, mine holds 500 MB, it just connects to your USB port and is small enough to have on your keychain. Mine was 90 Dollars CDN but that was when they first came out.


There's no way most people could fit their media onto a flash drive. Even a 4gb flash drive would still hold a 10th of my collection. Best bet is to find a external usb drive enclosure and an old 40gb drive that someone no longer needs.
Author:  SuperGenius [ Sun May 22, 2005 12:22 pm ]
Post subject: 
would an external drive be fast enough?

i've got a dvd burner so i don't really NEED it for media, but i'm really looking to unstall ut2004 here...
Author:  wtd [ Sun May 22, 2005 1:26 pm ]
Post subject: 
SuperGenius wrote:
would an external drive be fast enough?

i've got a dvd burner so i don't really NEED it for media, but i'm really looking to unstall ut2004 here...


If you need fast and an external drive, I'd definitely use Firewire. USB 2.0 has a theoretical maximum speed slightly higher than Firewire 400, but Firewire has better sustained transfer rates, and uses a peer-to-peer style of communication, rather than master-slave, so it doesn't sap your CPU.

There's also Firewire 800, which some external drives support.
Author:  Cervantes [ Sun May 22, 2005 1:29 pm ]
Post subject: 
How big is UT2004? It must be enormous if you need to buy a harddrive dedicated to ut2004!

Lazerous: I got a 20gb harddrive in my computer right now that I got for free from a computer someone had chucked. I also got an 80gb the same way, though it's health is still in question.
Author:  SuperGenius [ Sun May 22, 2005 5:13 pm ]
Post subject: 
the install size for ut2004 is 5.5 gigs Shocked according to system requirements on the website

plus maps, mods, vehicles... what makes me want to go to the trouble to get this game is the community...
Author:  SuperGenius [ Thu May 26, 2005 6:50 pm ]
Post subject: 
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1074952

i like the cost, although it is only 5400 rpm, and the seek time is listed as 13ms, rather than 8.5-9.5ms for more costly drives.
also the cache is 2mb rather than 8... but does all of this matter that much?
Author:  wtd [ Thu May 26, 2005 7:00 pm ]
Post subject: 
SuperGenius wrote:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1074952

i like the cost, although it is only 5400 rpm, and the seek time is listed as 13ms, rather than 8.5-9.5ms for more costly drives.
also the cache is 2mb rather than 8... but does all of this matter that much?


Yes, it does matter.
Author:  1of42 [ Thu May 26, 2005 7:35 pm ]
Post subject: 
SuperGenius wrote:
the install size for ut2004 is 5.5 gigs Shocked according to system requirements on the website

plus maps, mods, vehicles... what makes me want to go to the trouble to get this game is the community...


yeah... basic size is 5.5 GBs. mine is 13.7 Very Happy maps, mods, and everything else tends to pile up quickly.
Author:  SuperGenius [ Thu May 26, 2005 7:41 pm ]
Post subject: 
wtd wrote:
SuperGenius wrote:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1074952

i like the cost, although it is only 5400 rpm, and the seek time is listed as 13ms, rather than 8.5-9.5ms for more costly drives.
also the cache is 2mb rather than 8... but does all of this matter that much?


Yes, it does matter.


i looked up the specs for my current drive... 7200 rpm with "average latency" of 4.2ms... which gets me confused because all the drives i've looked at have "average seek times" of around 9ms....
.EDIT: it has an average seek time of 8.9ms, but which spec determines it's ability to run a huge game like UT?


if it will let me play ut2004 at a reasonable speed... i don't care all that much about performance
Author:  axej [ Sat May 28, 2005 9:29 pm ]
Post subject: 
SuperGenius wrote:
wtd wrote:
SuperGenius wrote:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1074952

i like the cost, although it is only 5400 rpm, and the seek time is listed as 13ms, rather than 8.5-9.5ms for more costly drives.
also the cache is 2mb rather than 8... but does all of this matter that much?


Yes, it does matter.


i looked up the specs for my current drive... 7200 rpm with "average latency" of 4.2ms... which gets me confused because all the drives i've looked at have "average seek times" of around 9ms....
.EDIT: it has an average seek time of 8.9ms, but which spec determines it's ability to run a huge game like UT?


if it will let me play ut2004 at a reasonable speed... i don't care all that much about performance

seek time and rpm are in fact directly related. since a hard drive is magnetic media, it has to spin in order for a computer to slog through 5.5Gb of data and find the appropriate file for that particular time. the faster is spins, the faster the computer goes through your data and stuff. latency is time wasted basically. when a part runs while waitng for another component so that it can finish the job, it is called latency. in order to play a game like UT, you must also consider other things like RAM and processing power. RAM is volatile memory it store things and gets erased, the more you have the better. on windows machines(im not sure about mac os or linux), you also have virtual memory. virtual memory is great it makes programs run smooother without having to upgrade RAM since RAM is expensive. i suggest maxxing this out by going to control pannel and system. then go to advanced the pperformance and max out your virtual memory. if you have anymore engineering or techincal questions, don't hesitate to ask me. im a genius that way. also you can go to http://www.webopedia.com for all your engineering terms. oh yeah i forgot about chache. this is fast, expensive and close to the CPU its basically important info that needs to be accessed quickly. having a good cooling system makes things run better since your parts heat up quickly and don't function as welll as the should be functioning.
Author:  SuperGenius [ Mon May 30, 2005 6:05 pm ]
Post subject: 
How do i find out which types of drives my computer will accept? I could open the case, but I wouldn't know how to tell the difference between types...

i checked on the western digital site, and my current drive is EIDE...
Author:  Mazer [ Mon May 30, 2005 6:28 pm ]
Post subject: 
I'd suggest opening your case anyways. Even just so that you've seen inside it.

You've said your computer supports EIDE hard drives (I can't imagine any desktops that don't--with the exception of the older machines that might only be IDE), so you know just about any hard drive you'd buy will work. I say that because I'm guessing you'd want an EIDE drive over SATA (or even SCSI) because they're quite a bit cheaper from what I see.

What you can do is go to tigerdirect.ca and look at the motherboards. They'll have a picture of the motherboard itself, and also individual close up shots of different sections of it. They're all labeled, I'm pretty sure.
Author:  SuperGenius [ Thu Jun 23, 2005 6:16 pm ]
Post subject: 
still researching... i'm thinking about getting an external enclosure, as i'm not allowed to go bludering about inside this computer.

But, i saw different sizes, mostly 2.3 inch and 3.5 inch... which size would take normal desktop hard drives?
Author:  wtd [ Thu Jun 23, 2005 6:30 pm ]
Post subject: 
Hard drives in desktop computers are typically 3.5".

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