| If you need to replace or upgrade your
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| | connector but at a much faster speed.
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| hard drive are some tips you need to know
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| | Speaking of which...
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| before you break out your wallet...
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| | "I feel the need for speed!"
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| Your hard drive is fading into the West.
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| | The first thing you should find out when
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| You hear all manner of grinding sounds
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| | looking at a new hard drive is its
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| coming from it and it's working slower
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| | rotational speed or RPMs (revolutions per
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| than an accountant doing an audit. So you
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| | minute). The higher the RPM rating a
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| grab your wallet and bounce down to the
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| | drive has, the faster it will work when
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| local electronics store to find a
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| | in operation. Speed = better performance
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| replacement.
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| | for both the Windows operating system and
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| Whoa! You get inside and are dazzled and
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| | other software programs. The average RPM
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| dazed by the sheer number of hard
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| | for a hard drive is either 5400 or 7200.
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| disks...you didn't think it would be this
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| | Seek Times. Occasionally you may hear
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| difficult.
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| | some big time technical person mention
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| All you want is something affordable and
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| | the "seek times" for a drive. Seek times
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| reliable but where to start?
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| | are measured in milliseconds and are
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| Performance vs. Capacity
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| | basically a gauge of how rapidly a
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| When you are out shopping for a new drive
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| | software program can locate the data it
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| these are the two main factors you should
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| | requires on a given hard drive.
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| take into consideration. Performance is
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| | Access times and seek times for our
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| based on a computer's drive controllers
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| | purposes are the same. Most modern home
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| (connector types), the rotational speed
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| | computers have a seek time of about 8ms.
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| and access times of the drive itself.
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| | So a new drive with a seek time of 9ms is
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| Capacity is basically a question of
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| | considered a bit slow.
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| storage space and whether or not your
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| | So when looking at speed find the highest
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| current system can recognize and handle
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| | RPM matched with the lowest or average
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| it or not.
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| | seek time.
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| Know your connector type
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| | Bigger is Better?
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| Modern computers can have several
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| | The next thing you should look at is a
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| different styles of controller interfaces
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| | device's size or storage space. You
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| (connector types) and this will greatly
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| | ideally should get as big of a drive as
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| determine what kind of drive you can fix
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| | you can afford. Hard drive capacity is
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| into your machine.
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| | measured in "megabytes" (million byte
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| The current standard is the IDE or ATA
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| | size: very old drives), "gigabytes"
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| drive. ATA drives can have ATA/66, ATA
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| | (billion byte size: current drives), and
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| 100 or ATA/133 connections. Every ATA
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| | the very newest are "terabyte" drives
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| slot can operate 2 separate devices (2
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| | (trillion byte size). Like in a house,
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| hard drives, 1 drive/CD or CD/DVD).
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| | you can never have "too much" storage
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| The newest drives have SATA (Serial ATA)
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| | room!
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| connectors but can only run device per
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| | So now you know to get a drive with...
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