How to add more HDD

[saeen]

Hey
I got an Intel board which does not support RAID0 or RAID1 but I got 6 sata ports on board. My 500GB HDD is now getting pack and I want to add some new HDD's. Suggest a better way to add more HDD's.

 

[DocBrown]

Buy a large 1tb SATA HD, plug it in to 1 of those 6 sata connections. Format it, & use for additional storage of files, pics, music, etc.

 

[saeen]

Will it be as fast as my primary HDD? I remember old days when I connect my IDE HDD with primary and my computer turns slow . Please guide as I am new to SATA.

 

[DocBrown]

If you get a SATA HD rated at 7200 rpms it shuld be fast, along with your current CPU & memory. Easily installed, thin data cable & power cable to the SATA HD.

 

[saeen]

Hmm ok i got it. Appreciate your help bro.
Edit: What if i get a RAID controller and then connect my HDD's?

 

[jimbo45]

SATA disks will be fine -- and you can plug them in any order -- the BIOS should give you a BOOT Prirority.

What I'd do first is the following

1) Add the hardware - actually I'd go for a 1.5TB disk - they cost around the same and the extra 500gb is always useful.

2) Change your Bios so the new HDD is the ist boot disk - the reason I'm suggesting this is that we really want to create a separate OS partition (I'd say 50 GB should be more than enough for a W7 installation). We can then copy your USER data to another partition / partitions and then clean up your old 500GB drive.

3) Install NEW your W7 installation -- just create the NEW partition on the new drive at install time --make it 50 GB.

4) Boot it up.

6) Create say 2 500GB partitions on the new drive.

7) BACKUP your new OS before adding any applications etc.

The reason for this is that you've got a clean uninfected system you can revert to if it becomes infected.

6) copy your data to one of these partitions.

7) re-format your old drive.

8) install your applications

9) virus / malware scan it -- if OK step 10.

10) BACK UP THE OS AGAIN - gives you another restore option if your computer becomes infected - saves you having to re-install all the applications again.

11) now re-arrange your data to your own convenience

12) enjoy.

Keep the backup from step 7 as this can be used as a clean reference system or a good starting point if you want to create some Virtual machines (it's easy to create a VM from a physical one - plenty of tutorials on the Forum.

Note: YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MUCH BACKUP and ALWAYS SEPARATE THE OS FROM THE USER DATA.

Not sure on a typical Home computer if RAID actually buys you anything - it's probably easier and more cost effective to backup stuff regularly and replace an HD if it fails (which these days they don't do that often anymore).

There IS overhead in using RAID - especially with typical Consumer quality HDD's. Decent Enterprise level HDD's and RAID systems are expensive. -- Just my thoughts however.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[bobkn]

Hmm ok i got it. Appreciate your help bro.
Edit: What if i get a RAID controller and then connect my HDD's?

Don't consider RAID unless you want RAID for its own sake.

When you add disks to a RAID array, all data on them may be lost. (That normally happens on an Intel onbaord controller; I don't know about third-party cards.)

With SATA, there's only a single HD per channel (unlike PATA, also known as IDE), so there are no concerns with master/slave jumpers.

 

[Darryl Licht]

For more on SATA vs PATA, see my comparison here: http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/34165-sata-vs-pata-hdds.html