Hard Drive Tips

These Hard drive tips will help you to protect your computer and hard drive. Use it and get the benefits. This is the complete guide for information about hard drive and also get the tips for easy way to clean a hard drive.

Day by day computers are getting advanced. Capacity and performance are increasing with every passing year. This is true for the primary storage also. Latest Hard disks are getting bigger in capacity and with higher rotational speed can access the data faster. This is good news for computer users, as the need for larger and faster storage solutions is must. Home PC is now increasingly used for data-intensive tasks, such as making VCDs of special occasions to share with loved ones.

Digital revolution

The digital revolution has brought with it the need to store vast amounts of data. The new Hard disks are ready to take the challenge. The good news is these Hard disks with higher capacity are affordable. Thanks to a very competitive market and demanding consumers. Hard disk technology is suitable for the bandwidth demands of today's applications. The 7200 rpm hard disk drives with a minimum storage space of 40 GB and above are now more common than ever before.

The demand for storage in PCs has boomed. With a lot of multimedia files being used today, including MP3, Flash files and movies—even today's entry level 40 GB hard disks aren't enough for users. On the other hand, 60 to 80 GB, 7200 rpm drives are also available and are preferred by professionals. Seeing the demand for higher capacity drives, Maxtor recently launched its 250 GB hard disk in the IDE interface for around us $ 380.

Serial ATA hard disk technology would really push the existing ATA 100/133 to its end. It is ease of use and requires low power s compared to the existing drives. As it uses a much smaller interface connector and cable, the space inside the cabinet increases and provides for more efficient cooling.

Today some of the drives available are as fast as 15000 rpm, which are extremely good for multimedia applications such as ripping of movies and MP3 songs. Due to the speed, these drives generate a lot of heat and thus need special cooling, for which vendors, such as Antec have launched special hard disk cooling devices that bring down the temperature of the disk by around 10 to 15 degrees—this enhances the performance as well as the life of the disk. Although not popular yet, it has many followers with users looking for performance.

Today, the entry level drives are the 5400 rpm drives, which deliver sequential read and write speeds of about 25 MBps. This is sufficient for applications such as word processors, Internet surfing, etc. These drives are at least ATA/66 compliant, which implies a peak theoretical transfer rate of 66 MBps.

The higher performance 7200 rpm IDE models are generally ATA/100 compliant and are ideally suited to applications such as audio and video processing. The prices for these drives begin from US $90 to 100 for a 40 GB unit. The brand-new Serial ATA (SATA) drives support the ATA/150 standard. SATA II in fact even goes as far as enabling a theoretical throughput of 300 MBps! An 80 GB SATA drive costs around US $ 220.

When it comes to sheer performance, however, the latest SCSI technology still takes the honors with a theoretical transfer rate of 320 MBps, and the ability to daisy chain several devices on a single controller. However, this technology comes at a high price.

Tips for buying

• Capacity and Speed - If you need to store MP3s and DivX films, or to back up heavy image files, buy the largest hard disk you can afford. On the other hand, if you extensively use applications such as image editing or audio processing software, look for the fastest hard disk you can afford—at least a 7200 rpm drive -and buy the largest in that speed range.

• Researching the market - Ask your friends or dealers you know, or search the Internet for information about the manufacturer, the reputation they enjoy and their after-sales service.

• Warranty - Apart from the time frame covered, also check the type of warranty. Some manufacturers will replace the hard disk only in the first year, after which they will only repair it. This is rather unreliable and can lead to more problems in the future.

• Replacement time - Confirm the time it takes to replace a faulty hard disk. This is especially important if your business relies heavily on data storage. Generally, manufacturers who run a service center are able to provide quick replacements, while those who don't have service centers could take weeks to replace a faulty hard disk.

• Accessories - Check for accessories such as IDE cables, disk management software and operating manuals.

Smart tips

Capacity: For most users an entry level 40 GB drive would be sufficient. However, IDE drives of capacity up to 250 GB are available. SCSI models are available in sizes ranging from 9 GB to 80 GB.

Rotational speed: This refers to the spindle rpm of the drive under consideration. Higher spindle speeds lead to faster read and write performance. These range from 5400 to 7200 rpm for IDE drives and 7200 to 15000 rpm for SCSI models.

Sustained data transfer rates: This is measure of the drive's performance terms of data transfer to and from t drive. This should be about 20 to MBps for 5400 rpm drives and 30 to MBps for 7200 rpm drives. The new SA drives support even higher rates.

Average seek time: This is the average time taken by the drive to access data stored on the drive. A time between 5.5 to 10 milliseconds is acceptable for most mainstream applications.

Data buffer (cache)Tip : This is the amount of onboard memory that the drive possesses. It increases transfer speeds when data is copied from one location in 1 drive to another. This ranges from 512 KB in the 5400 rpm drives to as much as 8 MB in the 7200 rpm IDE models. The most common data buffers size is 2 MB.

Motherboard/IDE controller card: In order to tap the full potential of a hard drive, you need to make sure that your motherboard's IDE controller supports the same specification (ATA/66/100/133) interface. If you're buying a SATA hard disk, your motherboard should have onboard SATA support, else you will have to buy a controller card as well. Finally, be aware that there are two types of SATA controllers—native and bridge. A bridge merely acts as a connection between a SATA drive and the moth board's standard parallel ATA interface, while a native controller is a true SATA controller. Since a bridge uses the same underlying technology that runs the current ATA interface, it wipes out SATA's performance advantage.

Decision maker

Minimum Requirement - If your time on the PC is spent surfing the Internet and maybe creating a spreadsheet or two. A hard disk with the bare minimum capacity should be enough for you. The same holds true for businesses where the PC is primarily used for accounting and billing purposes, or for creating letters and spreadsheets. A 40 GB drive should be sufficient, that's the entry level solution available today. Given your frugal need for space, this hard disk should last you several years.

Home Use – If you are using general applications like Word, excel and outlook express. Also using it for Internet surfing, go for 40 GB, 7200 RPM Hard disk. We recommend Samsung SP4002H.

Higher capacity – If space is your criteria for large data storage, go for 7200 RPM and ATA /100. We recommend Seagate Barracuda ATA IV 80 GB or Western Digital WD1200. If you're a typical home user who stores the latest applications, MP3s, videos, movie trailers and even full-length movies, not to mention space-hogging games. No amount of space is ever going to satisfy you. Go for at least a 60 GB drive. If you feel you might exceed that as well, 80 GB might be more appropriate. Space also matters if you use CAD/CAM software, or are a graphics professional with a penchant for 3D animations.

Speed is your mantra... ...if you are a power user, but lack the purchasing power to buy a SCSI drive. Consider a 7200 rpm drive—the capacity you get would depend on how much you can afford, but an 80 GB drive should suit you just fine.

Performance with no price bar – Go for 200 or 250 GB, 7200 RPM supporting ATA/133. We recommend Maxtor DiamondMax 16.

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