How to Select a Hard Drive

When investigating a new or replacement hard disk, consider both capacity and speed.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Hard Disks

1. If you own a computer, see how much space you're using on your current hard disk. Buy a new disk that allows considerable room for programs you'll add and files you'll save.

2. Realize that sound and video files, as well as applications, take the most room. Text files take up hardly any room.

3. As a rule of thumb, select a new hard disk that holds at least 100 gigabytes (GB) of data.

4. Buy a hard drive with a rotational speed of 7,200 revolutions per minute (rpm) or higher. Expect to spend much less for a 5,400-rpm drive.

5. Look for an average seek time of fewer than 12 milliseconds (ms).

6. Look for a data transfer rate of at least 15 megabytes (MB) per second.

7. Be aware that the actual sustained speed of the drive will be less than the maximum "burst" speed.

Tips & Warnings

• The bigger a hard disk, the more important that it be fast; your computer can slow as it searches and searches to find the data you're working on.
• An Ultra IDE or ATA/66 drive or an Ultra2 SCSI/80 drive are among the fastest potential speeds at the end of 1999, but these are maximum, not sustained, speeds. IDE/ATA and SCSI are different interfaces, or ways the drive communicates with your computer's processor.
• Computer storage technology is improving and prices are dropping; alternatives to hard disks, such as Zip disks and recordable CDs, also exist.
• You may need to partition hard disks larger than 8.4 GB. Some consumer models come with the hard disk already partitioned.

[noampierski]

on 3/25/2009 (3) It is 2009 now, and you would be hard pressed to find a 5GB thumb drive. As I write this, 1TB drives have the best GB/$ ratio, and 2TB drives are available for purchase. (4) 5,400 RPM is a thing of the past, except for notebook drives, perhaps. Surprisingly, 7,200 RPM drives are still the most common ones -- this hasn't changed much over the last decade. Finally, if price is a consideration, you might want to check the chart at http://www.factblender.com/ to find what hard drive size is most cost-effective at this time.

[pzlkween]

on 3/29/2008 From the 'Tips & Warnings' section - "...fastest potential speeds at the end of 1999..." It is 2008, please update this information.