Need advice for buying second hard drive

[Trotter]

Hello,

I have an HP Pavilion pc with a Quantum Fireball HD. Recently I found out that the rpms for the Quantum HD is only 4400. I will be using my pc for multi- track audio recording and need a HD with at least 7200 rpms.

Being fairly new to computers I need to ask a few questions about selecting a HD. My Quantum HD is a UDMA/33 HD. Does it matter if my new HD is a UDMA or a ATA? Some of the HD'S I've seen have BB motors or fluid dynamic motors, is one better than the other? One of the Maxtor HD'S requires an IDC connector, will it work with my HP?

I'm leaning toward buying a Maxor 30 or 40 GB HD. What do you guys think about Maxtor HD'S for multi-track audio recording? Should the HD with the highest rpm be the master or the secondary master?

Thanks in advance.
Trotter

[Cricket]

Hi Trotter,

ATA and UDMA are sort of used interchangeably and they refer to the same thing...burst rate of data transfer a hard drive is capable of.

Need to know more about your system to know if you can use the current crop of large hard drives. Your system may have BIOS limitations and you might not be able to get the full potential out of the hard drive if your motherboard only supports ATA33. You can install a Promise IDE controller card to get full potential out of newer hard drives if you need to.

If you're going to get a Maxtor 7200 RPM ATA100 or ATA133 hard drive, make sure you get a DiamondMax Plus series hard drive.

IBM 60 GXP series hard drives were designed with multimedia requirements in mind.

Put the 7200 RPM as the master on the primary IDE channel.

Post back with more information regarding your system.

Cricket

[Trotter]

Hi Cricket,

Here's some more info on my pc.

HP Pavilion xe743
Quantum Fireball UDMA/33 lct15 4400 rpm HD
320 ram
Board: Asus HAWK 1.08
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies LTD 1.10
Celeron 600mhz processor
Windows 98se
Intel(R) 810e Chipset

Thanks,
Trotter

[Trotter]

Hi All,

I have more questions about installing a second HDD. As stupid as they may be I still need to ask them so please bear with me. Once I have two HDD'S installed will both of the HDD's have to have windows98 installed on them? My computer has only a free 3.5 inch drive bay, do I need to install a cooling fan along with the new HDD?

I am pretty confused as to how my new HDD should be set up. Master, slave or secondary master. I am also a member of a audio recording forum, and most of the guys say to make the new HDD the secondary master.

In some of the Maxtor kits they include software to help install and format the HDD, does any one know where a Maxblast fdisk can be bought seperately?

At this time I would like to thank everyone for helping me upgrade the ram in my pc. You guys gave me excellent advice. I now have 320 megs of ram, and my pc is operating very well.

Thanks,
Trotter

[JimC]

You only need to install Win98 on ONE HDD, the primary master. The entire operating system will be on that drive (the 'boot" drive). It is advantageous to make your new HDD the primary master/boot drive, as it will be a lot faster than your old drive. Your fastest drive should be the boot drive with the operating system, so that you will have a PC whose overall speed is much faster.
7200 RPM drives can generate a lot of heat, so you should use a fan with it. You can get dual fan assemblies with filter (like Vantech) that pop in to the 3.5 in. opening on the front of the case. This pulls in air and blows it directly over the HDD to cool it. Quick and simple to install, and not expensive.

[Cricket]

Hi Trotter,

If your new hard drive is a fast one (7200 RPM), I would make it the master and use the older 4400 RPM drive as a storage drive (slave it to the new hard drive). Your new hard drive would be limited to ATA33 instead of ATA66/100 since that's what your motherboard supports. You could add a ATA100 IDE controller card to your system to make better use of the new hard drive. Promise makes good controller cards for this.

7200 RPM drives do get warm, but if you have good case cooling (1 fan in lower front for intake, 1 fan on back of PC for exhaust) and don't stack the new hard drive so that there isn't any space between it and another drive, you should be fine. A drive cooler, while having some benefits, will just add noise to your system. If your HP is like the current ones, it's probably in a mini-tower and the cooling will be minimal. Packed with drives, you may experience heat related problems if you don't have at least 1 good sized fan on the back exhausting heat from your case. If there's no room for an exhaust fan, you might have to remove the cover to allow heat to escape.

MaxBlast Plus II is a free download from Maxtor. Go to their website and look for Product Support> Software Download page. With the MaxBlast software, you will be able to prep the new hard drive (be careful that you don't partition and format the wrong drive) and will allow you to transfer the contents of your current hard drive to the new hard drive. This eliminates having to re-install Windows and all your programs.

Maxtor Website

When you install your new hard drive, don't forget to go into BIOS to detect it. And set the hard drive jumpers accordingly.

Cricket

[Trotter]

Hi,

My computer is pretty much the way you described it. It has an intake and exhaust fan. The only free drive bay is a 3.5 inch which is between the CD drive and the floppy drive.

I have decided to buy a Maxtor 30GB Diamondmax plus as well as a Promise ATA/100 controller card. I can get get both for around $125 total.

Thanks for the link to the Maxtor site. I downloaded the Maxblast program, and have made a fdisk for my new HDD.

Thanks again for the help.

Trotter