There are three very important things to consider when purchasing an internal hard drive; the compatibility of the drive with your computer, the size or capacity of the hard drive, and the speed of the hard drive. If any of these are lacking, the result will not be the best for you that it could be.

Compatibility: Hard drives may have different connections than those that are available in your computer. If you get a hard drive that can't be connected to your system, what good is it going to do you? If you are not sure what connections your computer has, you can either open the case and look, or check with the technical manual for your computer. (If it didn't come with one, you may be able to check online to get one for your computer.) Further, older operating systems were not well suited for larger drives, especially without a software patch which may or may not still be available. It is senseless to buy a large hard drive if only a quarter or half of it will be seen by the computer.

Capacity: There was a time, not long ago, when a 4 GB to an 8 GB hard drive was considered pretty big. With the modern operating systems and programs, this is either not nearly enough to run everything, or just barely enough. Drives of 40, 80, 160, and 300 GB are common place, and even much larger drives are available. Costs must be weighed when considering the size of the drive, and what the drive is going to be primarily used for should also be taken into account. If a person does absolutely nothing but word processing, a 40 GB hard drive would probably be enough. But for a person who does graphics or sound work, even a 300 GB drive may be too small. On the other hand, if a 160 costs a quarter of what a 300 GB drive costs, the 300 GB drive probably isn't a very good buy.

Speed: The speed refers to the speed that the hard disk spins, in Revolutions Per Minute (RPM). In general, though this has to do with the system and operating system, the faster the hard drive spins, the faster the disk can be read. A very large hard drive that doesn't move very fast is going to tend to be sluggish, while one that is moving very fast will usually be read quicker, so the system will run faster. An RPM of 7200 is fairly common, but drives can be found that rotate at a speed of 9600 RPM or even higher. Beware, however; a faster hard drive will usually be more expensive than a slower one.

An additional point when putting a new hard drive into a system that already has a working hard drive: This creates a primary drive and a secondary or slave drive. It is far best to set the larger drive as the primary drive, though this may mean changing jumper settings. If so, if you are uncertain how to do this, it would be a good idea to seek the assistance of a professional. Note also that doing this may mean that the operating system may need to be reinstalled to the new hard drive. This will be to your advantage, both in speed and performance.

Learn more about this author, Rex Trulove.
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