Harddrive free memory

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peter912

Member
Presently I have 78.2 GB free of 288 GB in my computer . At what level of available free space do you recommend that I add an additional hard drive to the computer ? In other words how will I know , will I get a message from the computer that it doesn't have any more free space left ?

When I ordered the computer I wish that I had gotten the 500 GB hard drive instead of the 320 GB that I chose . If a second hard drive is installed will the computer automatically go there if the first hard drive is full ?
 
When it gets close to say only 40 gb left then you might want to start thinking about getting a second drive to store all your personal data on and just leave the other drive for windows and programs. What operating system do you have?
 
It will tell you when it's low on space, but by then it's too late to avoid slowdowns. If you install a second hard drive nothing happens automatically, you need to manually move files over to it.
 
johnb35 said:
When it gets close to say only 40 gb left then you might want to start thinking about getting a second drive to store all your personal data on and just leave the other drive for windows and programs. What operating system do you have?
Click to expand...

Windows VISTA
 
WRXGuy1 said:
It will tell you when it's low on space, but by then it's too late to avoid slowdowns. If you install a second hard drive nothing happens automatically, you need to manually move files over to it.
Click to expand...

So what I meant was, lets say I want to download something, will it ask which hard drive I want it to go on ?
 
Depends on the browser and if you click save or save as. In Vista you go into each of the following user folders and change the location to where its stored.

Documents
Pictures
Music
Videos
Downloads

Right click on each of those folders and click on properties, click on the location tab and change the drive to where its stored.
 
Installation question

So let's say I buy a 1 TB internal hard drive and call a technician to install it at my house , will he need any other parts to do the installation ? I remember years ago when a technician came to do this I had to run out to the store to buy some kind of ribbon that was needed for the installation .
 
You'll need a SATA data cable. You should have a few spare SATA power cables on your power supply.
 
If you don't want to pay a technician to do the job,you can either do it yourself or if you are afraid that you will mess something up,you can always use the USB drive which comes in it's own enclosure such as this one:
Seagate_GoFlex_500GB.jpg

If on the other hand the data transfer speed is VERY important to you then you would be better off with having the hard disk drive directly plugged in into your SATA port on the motherboard.But USB data transfer speed today is pretty big anyway...
But you can really do it yourself rather than paying someone to do it for you.It's simple as hell.
All you have to do is to screw the drive on your computer case and then plug the POWER CONNECTOR (which comes from your power supply unit) into the hard disk drive and DATA CONNECTOR (which comes from your motherboard SATA port) into the hard disk drive.So both things go into hard disk drive.Here is how:
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Cheers!
 
peter912 said:
I saw that there are two types , one that has a power cable and one that doesn't. How do I know which one it is that I need to get ?
Click to expand...

The power cables are the wide ones. The data cables are the thin ones.
2014-01-12_010208_sata_power_and_data_cables.jpg
 
Like I said in my first response to you, you should have extra connectors coming off your power supply. Open your side panel and check.
 
Problem solved

At the store they told me that data and power cables are included in the box with the 1 T Hard Disc Drive. I decided against installing more Ram, I already have 3 GB Ram and it is not worth spending over $300 on upgrades when a new Computer could be bought for a little more. I settled on just adding the second hard drive to my computer, the technician is coming out next week to install it.

I read so many bad things about Windows 8 that I think that I will wait for another year till Windows 9 comes out before I buy another Computer. There is no need to rush since my computer is working just fine.
 
Power cables do not come with the hard drive, If its a retail boxed hard drive then you will get a sata data cable and screws. The power connector will be on the power supply. Installing a hard drive is so easy a 10 year old kid could do it. Save your money and do it yourself.
 
johnb35 said:
Power cables do not come with the hard drive, If its a retail boxed hard drive then you will get a sata data cable and screws. The power connector will be on the power supply. Installing a hard drive is so easy a 10 year old kid could do it. Save your money and do it yourself.
Click to expand...
Agreed, it is VERY easy to install it. If you want someone to walk you through it, search YouTube as there are thousands of DIY videos.

Most likely the drive only comes with a data cable as John said, although there is a chance it comes with a molex to SATA power cable.
 
WRXGuy1 said:
Agreed, it is VERY easy to install it. If you want someone to walk you through it, search YouTube as there are thousands of DIY videos.

Most likely the drive only comes with a data cable as John said, although there is a chance it comes with a molex to SATA power cable.
Click to expand...

Well you guys here were right, it literally took the technician less than 5 minutes to install the second hard drive into the computer . Then he had about 30 seconds to type in something on the computer. Now see it was that part that I wouldn't have known how to do. The installation I might have been able to because it even had instructions in the box itself , as well as the necessary cables. Now tell me this, from the 1 T storage the computer says that I have 929 Gb . Where is the other 71 GB ? It's the same as with my original hard drive 320 GB and the computer is showing only 288 GB.

p.s. Is it just my imagination or has the computer gotten louder since the second hard drive has been installed ?
 
The amount of space is correct. Its the difference between what an actual gigiabyte is and what the manufacturers say a gigabyte is. You aren't losing any space at all. What the technician did was go into disk management and format the drive so windows would actually see it. We would have told you how to do that as well.
 
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