This page has information on hard disk drives, and what you need to know for upgrading them.
If you want to increase your computers storage capacity and the speed of your computer, an easy way to do this is to put a new hard drive in it.
New hard drives have transfer speeds much faster than old hard drives. If you have a Pentium or Pentium II computer, and some earlier Pentium III computers, chances are your hard drive is working at the old speed of ATA 33. Integrated Digital Electronic (IDE) hard drives available now, have a transfer rate of ATA 133, four times faster.
A new kind of disk is the Serial ATA Hard Drive. This is a new kind of hard drive that has entered into the market and claims to be able of speeds at 150 MHz transfer. The latest motherboards will have the ablity to utilize this type of hard drive. Another development in hard drives is the Serial ATA II.
Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) hard disk drives which transfers data at 320 Megabytes per second are also available but cost about three times as much.
In order to be able to install hard disk drive that transfers data faster you will need a PCI adapter card. These cards costs from $35.00 and are relatively simple to install. I recommend one that has a built in BIOS.
A new IDE hard drive with more storage space will start around $50.00. So for about $100.00 you can triple the speed that your computer transfers data and add an enormous amount of storage capability.
An important consideration when buying a new hard drive is the warranty. There are several different amounts of time on hard disk drives. Some of them have 5 year warranties from the date of manufacture. You can check with the manufactures websites for information on their warranties. Some of the hard drive manufactures are as follows: Fujitsu, Seagate, Maxtor, Western Digital, and Samsung.
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