I JUST BOUGHT A TERABYTE HD! ... Now what?

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Delpheno

New Member
Okay so I got a terabyte hard drive in the mail today. (Opinions? I heard the fail rate was high, but I'll take the risk.)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145233

I think I should tell you the scenario first. I have a Dell 530s, Celeron 450 2.2ghz, 250W power supply unit. A 320gb hard drive in one bay. My plan is to have the terabyte in the second tray. I have a low-profile graphics card that I installed two months earlier, I'm not sure how much watt that thing is taking up.

My main concern is the power supply unit. With 250W, a low-profile graphics card, and a new terabyte hard drive being installed, should I worry about my PC parts frying up?

I don't have the SATA or the power cords. I plan on taking out the cords from the SATA DVD burner and use it for the terabyte. With the DVD burner out of the picture, should my wattage be fine?

There are also extra plugs for the power and sata cords in the motherboard. If I plan on getting the cords, I would have a low-profile graphics card, two hard drives, and a DVD burner running. Should I worry this setting?
 
Hmmm. That is a risk that I wouldn't exactly try... 250W is not a lot of room to play with. You run the risk of burning out your PSU. Any chance you can get a new PSU?
 
aviation_man said:
Hmmm. That is a risk that I wouldn't exactly try... 250W is not a lot of room to play with. You run the risk of burning out your PSU. Any chance you can get a new PSU?
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No, the 530s is a slimline, so getting a power supply with a small size would be difficult.

What I could do is take out the 320 hard drive and just replace it with the terabyte. Do you think that will be okay?
 
Aastii said:
that is too low, you will need a new PSU.

What is the card that you put in out of interest?
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No, when I got the new graphics card, I asked the same question about the PSU. I was afraid the graphics card would take up too much wattage. It didn't. Worked fine. Now I got a new hard drive. I'm going to ask the same thing again.

How do you guys know my PSU is not enough? Should I turn my terabyte into an external hard drive then?
 
250W is way too low for something like that. It's a pre-built computer so they don't leave you any room to upgrade parts that much... You mean return your HDD and get an external? what do you mean by that last part?
 
Delpheno said:
No, when I got the new graphics card, I asked the same question about the PSU. I was afraid the graphics card would take up too much wattage. It didn't. Worked fine. Now I got a new hard drive. I'm going to ask the same thing again.

How do you guys know my PSU is not enough? Should I turn my terabyte into an external hard drive then?
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there isn;t a way to know for this one, we don't know your full setup, but you can tell it won't because of this:

Prebuilt systems come with PSUs that will power what is in them and hardly any more. You have already taken it further quite a bit with a new graphics card and any tiny bit more will most probably end up tipping it over the edge.

If you put it external, it will still be powered by the computer, it doesn't just get its power from thin air then if you put it in an enclosure.

you can always buy a cheap case and a PSU, put it all in the new case, that would be the easier option.
 
aviation_man said:
250W is way too low for something like that. It's a pre-built computer so they don't leave you any room to upgrade parts that much... You mean return your HDD and get an external? what do you mean by that last part?
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No, I'm talking about getting an enclosure. Sorry for the confusion.


Aastii said:
there isn;t a way to know for this one, we don't know your full setup, but you can tell it won't because of this:

Prebuilt systems come with PSUs that will power what is in them and hardly any more. You have already taken it further quite a bit with a new graphics card and any tiny bit more will most probably end up tipping it over the edge.
Click to expand...

(When I bought it from Dell, they said the highest space it can hold is a terabye.) Now, even if I take out the 320gb and just replace it with the terabyte, it will still overload the system?

Aastii said:
If you put it external, it will still be powered by the computer, it doesn't just get its power from thin air then if you put it in an enclosure.
Click to expand...

Could I get an external enclosure where it powers through the AC adapter and not through the USB?

Aastii said:
you can always buy a cheap case and a PSU, put it all in the new case, that would be the easier option.
Click to expand...

Oh, that's worse case scenario right there.
 
Delpheno said:
No, I'm talking about getting an enclosure. Sorry for the confusion.

Could I get an external enclosure where it powers through the AC adapter and not through the USB?

Oh, that's worse case scenario right there.
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Oh ok. That would work if you have it plugged in via AC adapter. The USB would be simply for information only.

It's the cheapest scenario if you don't want an external HDD running off of AC power. I'd recommend that if you're planning on doing more hardware upgrading in the future.
 
aviation_man said:
Oh ok. That would work if you have it plugged in via AC adapter. The USB would be simply for information only.
Click to expand...

Righto.

aviation_man said:
It's the cheapest scenario if you don't want an external HDD running off of AC power. I'd recommend that if you're planning on doing more hardware upgrading in the future.
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Really now, my only question now is: If I take out my 320gb hard drive, and put in the terabyte hard drive, therefore, making a total of one hard drive inside my computer, will anything fry? Will this scenario work?

Basically I'll just be upgrading my hard drive, I won't be having two.
 
Delpheno said:
Righto.



Really now, my only question now is: If I take out my 320gb hard drive, and put in the terabyte hard drive, therefore, making a total of one hard drive inside my computer, will anything fry? Will this scenario work?

Basically I'll just be upgrading my hard drive, I won't be having two.
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What kind of graphics card are you running? Secondly, hard drive all use similar amounts of power, the actual storage capacity matters pretty much none. 250W is low even for a quality power supply and a dedicated graphics card, and dell does not use quality components, at best that unit is probably pushing 150W on the +12v rail. If you have a multimeter check the +12v voltage, Yellow(+) Black(-). Anything +/- 0.6V is out of ATX spec, and id be worried if it is beyond 0.25v out of spec or more, especially if its under 12v.
 
bomberboysk said:
What kind of graphics card are you running? Secondly, hard drive all use similar amounts of power, the actual storage capacity matters pretty much none. 250W is low even for a quality power supply and a dedicated graphics card, and dell does not use quality components, at best that unit is probably pushing 150W on the +12v rail. If you have a multimeter check the +12v voltage, Yellow(+) Black(-). Anything +/- 0.6V is out of ATX spec, and id be worried if it is beyond 0.25v out of spec or more, especially if its under 12v.
Click to expand...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125251

According to one of the reviews, the power consumption is 25 watts.

So for my question: Can I replace my 320gb hard drive with my terabyte hard drive without worries? the answer is Yes?

I don't have the tools to measure the voltage. I do know that on the power supply unit, it did say something about 150W and a +12v. Do you have any standard procedures without the multimeter? I'm about to check out that link the person above you gave out.
 
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