Hard Drive Question - How many can you have?

A 1,000 megabytes(not an exact figure) equals a gigabyte. A thousand gigs is close to actually being equal to 1TB. One thing to note that when you get a 500gb drive the actual available seen on any drive is less then the "rounded" figure advertised. With a 250gb drive here with Windows installed I first see 238+gb as the actual available drive space.

When booting from an old dos floppy I see something odd like 250001023230 as a figure based on cylinder heads and other figures. Once partitioned and formatted a noticably different figure is then seen especially by Windows.
 
Incidentally, PC Eye, I can speak from personal experience when I say that filling a typical case full of HDDs is a shitty idea. If you stack them on top of one another (which you pretty much have to do) and you don't have tons of cooling, the heat builds up and has nowhere to go. I just recently lost a drive to this on which was gigabytes upon gigabytes of multimedia files. Some that can't be replaced.

So, to the OP, trust me, get a drive bay. Learn from my mistakes and don't listen to his advice. HDDs generate a lot of heat. They HAVE to breathe. If not, you will experience catastrophic failures as a result. Unless you have a big case where you can spread them out or shitloads of cooling aimed directly at those drives which you keep free of dust on a regular basis, don't do it....unless of course your data isn't worth anything in which case I guess it doesn't really matter.
 
SirKenin said:
Incidentally, PC Eye, I can speak from personal experience when I say that filling a typical case full of HDDs is a shitty idea. If you stack them on top of one another (which you pretty much have to do) and you don't have tons of cooling, the heat builds up and has nowhere to go. I just recently lost a drive to this on which was gigabytes upon gigabytes of multimedia files. Some that can't be replaced.

So, to the OP, trust me, get a drive bay. Learn from my mistakes and don't listen to his advice. HDDs generate a lot of heat. They HAVE to breathe. If not, you will experience catastrophic failures as a result. Unless you have a big case where you can spread them out or shitloads of cooling aimed directly at those drives which you keep free of dust on a regular basis, don't do it....unless of course your data isn't worth anything in which case I guess it doesn't really matter.
Click to expand...

What you don't seem to able to comprehend was that the additional large capacity drives rather then a multitude of mid sized drives will go further if panning to have a large amount of files available on the system itself. There are also things like "hard drive coolers" available that some people just seem to not be familiar with.

This is why the question of knowing just how much files intended to be stored and the thought of even networking to a larger case like a server that is better equipped goes a lot further. storing files on removable media would even go further especially with the larger capacity disk soon to become available. Some people apparently grasp that concept. :rolleyes:
 
Okley Dokley, thanks everyone your advice is great!!!

SirKenin, i hear what you are saying about the drive bay and it would make sense not to be pulling my casing from my PC or alterantely the external hard drive apart each time i want to do a backup.

Had a look at the link, very impressed, looks like its the dogs bollocks to me. Perfecto buddy................nice one thanks.

Do you recommend the one with the fan in it? I imagine this would be better than no fan, common sense really and its only a couple of extra bucks.

Hey everyone, just wanted to say thanks to you ALL for being so helpful, for us who are not as up with things computerish its awsome to be able to come here and get such advice.

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!! I'm stoked............:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)
 
i guess it would depend on the motherboard.
most standard motherboards support 1-4 ide devices and 4-6 sata devices... depending on how many cd/dvd drives you have, it could probably support up to 6 sata hdd's and/or 4 ide drives.. assuming you dont have a server motherboard.
my hard drive has a fan right next to it, and it seems to run a lot cooler than everyone elses...
 
Server Case!

This is a prime example of home use of a hot-swap server case. You can put multiple drives in, and swap them out as you need to. Check [URL="http://www.pricewatch.com"/URL] for the best prices and vendors.

:cool:Brezzio
 
PC eye said:
A 1,000 megabytes(not an exact figure) equals a gigabyte. A thousand gigs is close to actually being equal to 1TB. One thing to note that when you get a 500gb drive the actual available seen on any drive is less then the "rounded" figure advertised. With a 250gb drive here with Windows installed I first see 238+gb as the actual available drive space.

When booting from an old dos floppy I see something odd like 250001023230 as a figure based on cylinder heads and other figures. Once partitioned and formatted a noticably different figure is then seen especially by Windows.
Click to expand...

there is no "rounding" going on. HDD manufacturer's say 1,000MB = 1GB and Microsoft says 1,024MB = 1 GB.
 
Right theres 1024MB in 1GB. Not 1000 like PCeye said. Its just a old fools game with harddrives manufactures to make you think your getting more than you are. There not rounding anything off. He says crap like that all the time.
 
I didnt read the whole thread, but why not save some money in the long run and just buy a one Tb external and be done with it. I dont care how much backing up you have, you'll never fill that up. After all these drives your buying it would be a hell of a lot cheaper!
 
I didnt read the whole thread, but why not save some money in the long run and just buy a one Tb external and be done with it. I dont care how much backing up you have, you'll never fill that up. After all these drives your buying it would be a hell of a lot cheaper!
Click to expand...
The post was dug up from 2006 so TB drives weren't available at the time, but yes, that would be the logical choice now. I also disagree that you'll never fill up a TB hard drive :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top