With today's graphic intensive programs, as well as the space demands of mp3s, videos, and picture files everyone seems to be looking for bigger hard drives. Fortunately, there has never been a better time to buy. Prices are down, even on large capacity 200 gb plus drives. But which one is right for you? Here is a quick reference guide to help you understand some of the common features and types around today. Speed: 7200 RPM is the most common on the market today, although the old generation 5400 RPM and the faster 10,000 RPM are still available but hard to find. Many users may notice little difference in everyday use, but if you are using lots of graphics, games, or video editing, the slower 5400 drive may not be for you. Recommended: 7200 RPM, the best combination of speed and price. Capacity: You have a wide selection here. Various sizes from 80gb to 500gb are widely available. How much do you need? This can be hard to estimate. To put things in perspective, 80gb can store around 20,000 average size mp3s, or about 10 - 12 DVD movies. This may sound like a lot, but as the average computer owner upgrades to larger hard drives, software developers increasingly turn out applications that require more and more storage space. That 80gb drive that seemed enormous at first is filled up faster than you think. A good rule of thumb is to purchase a size larger than what you need at the moment. Recommended: 120gb - 200gb. When it comes to value for you money, these are often the best gb per dollar bargains, where as the sizes at the upper and lower ends are specialty sizes that you are likely to pay a premium for. Buffer size: Most drives have 2mb to 16mb buffers, but in actual practice this makes little difference for most users. The largest size buffers are not worth paying extra. Recommended: 8mb buffer. Interface: ATA/100 and ATA/133 or SATA-150/SATA-300. Like the buffer size, this feature is often trumpeted in advertisements, but may not make a noticeable difference in performance. In fact, many computers are not setup to handle the higher speeds without a special card, so there may be no speed gain at all. Recommended: The lower speeds are fine, unless you are tech-savvy enough to configure you computer to take full advantage of the faster speeds. Seek Speed: This is the time it takes for the drive to find a particular piece of information. However, in ordinary use, the difference between the fastest and slowest seek speed is not noticeable. External Drives: For external drive, look closely at the connection type. USB 2.0/1.0 and Firewire are the most common options, but you must make sure you computer has these connections. If you do not, can usually add these connections to you computer. Recommended: USB 2.0 drive that supports plug/play. This allows transfer speeds up to 480mbps and portability between computers. Note: If your computer only has USB 1.0 ports, consider upgrading to 2.0, it will make a huge difference. Brand Name: Some buyers are partial to certain brands, but most of the major brand names on the market are high quality, and there is little difference in performance or reliability. One year warranties are common, and some manufacturers go up to 5 years. In the final analysis, brand is not important enough to change your decision on which drive you buy. |