marley07712

I am considering a second internal hard drive fro my desktop (which has really become my teenage sons). The current hard drive is a Seagate 200 GB 7200 RPM drive, which is about 75% full (I do clean it regularly with /ccleaner and ATF cleaner and defragment once a week). I assume this is due to games, pictures/video and music files. I've done some web research but find conflicting information. So I had a couple of questions that I'm hoping the experts here can shed some light on.

1. Does a nearly full hard drive slow down system performance (again I've seen conflicting information)? Intuitively, it seems to me that it could slow down boot up and program access, but shouldn't impact internet speed.

2. If I do install a second drive I was considering the same model I currently have, which has been problem free for many years. But I was curious as to the best approach. Would you recommend that the new drive be installed a slave drive and move the games, photos and videos to it, or would it make more sense to install it as the master and use the current drive as is as the slave?

3. If the former, are the files/programs that are moved to the slave drive easily accessible and do I need install the OS (XP Pro) on this new drive?

4. If the latter, again, are the programs/files easily accessible on the old drive easily accessible? I assume I would need to install the OS if this option were chosen.

I appreciate any thoughts on this. The physical installation shouldn't be a problem (While no expert I installed the current hard drive without issue when the original hard drive died) but I'm having trouble understanding conceptually how a second drive works and what the best approach is.

Thanks!

Tyree

Yes, a nearly full Hdd can cause performance issues.
It shouldn't impact Internet browsing speed.
Seagate has had some problems lately so I'm using and suggesting WD. The Black series has a 5 yr. warranty.
If you get a larger/faster Hdd, you can "Clone" the old drive to the new drive (leaves everything in tact) and use the old drive for backup/storage or you can simply install the new drive and use it for backup/storage.
Everything on all drives will be easily accessible and NO you do NOT want to install the OS on the new drive. Two Hdd's with the same OS cause problems.
Installation is pretty straight forward. Are the drives IDE or SATA?
If I totally confused you or left anything unanswered, please post back. I or someone else will continue to help.

marley07712

Thanks for the response. My current set-up is IDE and I have a spare connection closer to the PS so I assume that's for a slave drive. I installed the current hard drive myself after the original died so I'm not too concerned about that.

Before reading your reply I read about some recent issues with Seagate. It's funny, the drive I replaced about 3 years ago that failed was a WD, so I soured on them. But based on what I've read and your comment I'd certainly strongly consider WD again.

I think your suggestion to install a larger hard drive as the master and use my current drive as a slave makes the most sense. 2 questions:

1. Is there a specific cloning program I should use and is this process pretty seamless? In order to clone to the new drive do I install it as the slave, clone the current drive and then switch the two?

2. How do I prepare my current drive to act as the slave? Specifically, I assume I'll need to wipe it clean (I don't know how to do that). Once installed, do I need to run the software form the install CD or does it just act as a storage area (as an external drive would)?

Thanks again and I look forward to your response.

grimx133

ok, sounds like you're going to put in a new and larger IDE drive, and want to transfer the OS and contents of the 200GB drive to the new, then scrub the 200 to use as a data drive. Not a problem.

Give this thread a read, has a link to Drive Image XML (freeware) and how to change OS drives. Your's is slightly different, as it's two ide drives. To RAID or not to RAID? (Not a WoW question...)

First up you get your new ide drive.

The jumper on your current 200GB drive should be on master and it should be at the end (black) plug of the ide cable.
Jumper the new drive to slave, connect to middle(grey) plug, hook up power, and boot up the computer. Your old OS drive, which it's running on, should show as c:, and the new drive won't show in my computer. Go to disk management - right click "my computer", select "manage", then "disk management" in the bottom left. This will open up and show the physical (incl. partitions) drives that are installed in your computer. Either the new partition wizard will auto-launch, or right click on the new drive and select "create new partition". Go through the wizard, then the new drive will show in my computer. Now you're ready to transfer data.

Install DI xml and do the drive to drive copy thing. Once it has completed, shut down the computer. It's quite easy to use, refer to the other post.

Now you change the cable and the jumper on the new drive to the master position. End of cable and jumper as specified by manufacturer. Unhook the old drive for now. Boot the machine, make sure everything is exactly as it was, just on a new hard drive. If all is good, shut down.

Hook up the old drive to the middle "slave" postion on the ide cable and set the jumper to slave, as well. Boot up and the old drive should show as just another hard drive, with the next available drive letter. You can assign any letter (almost) in disk management, if you so desire. If you want it as a data drive, go to disk management, right click and format it.

marley07712

Thanks very much. Your step by step instructions are great -- very easy to folow! Sounds simple enough. I'll give it a go and see how it goes.

I read through the raid thread. After reading it I think I'd prefer to buy a new 500 GB drive and store the old as a spare. At a later date I could purchase another smaller drive to use as a data drive. It seems a new 500 GB drive will provide enough storage for now, and I like the peace of mind of having a spare.

Based on what I read in the raid thread, the process is the same as what you originally mentioned, I'd just skip the formatting step.

Thanks for pointing me to that thread. Having a spare is a great idea and the cost of a new 200 GB drive is relatively inexpensive now.

Thanks again.

grimx133

You're very welcome. Any problems, give us a shout, though it should all go smoothly.

Yah I like the spare idea too, Even though I keep images and can restore one and be up and running at the point of the latest image, I can also change a couple connections and boot into windows. Can never be too backed up.

dai

don't take any drive over 85% full