Here's a look at purchasing a new hard-drive.

You've probably not given much thought to your PC's internal storage. That's the great thing about today's technological advances: Most of the time, you can get your work done without ever worrying about "how" your PC accomplishes such tasks, such as saving and retrieving your files, juggling multiple applications, shifting bytes around in RAM, and other computer related bits of magic. For a lot of users, a PC fresh from the store is good enough for their current needs.

All is great until you start compiling scads of digital photos, multimedia files, and mp3s. Sooner or later, you'll realize that upgrading your hard drive, or even installing a 2nd or 3rd one, will greatly expand your PC's data storage capacity. Buying a new hard drive will not only provide more ample room for storage, but, if your current hard drive is a few years old, you'll most likely see an boost in your PC's performance, putting a new spring in your computer's step.

External hard drives--as opposed to internal hard drives, which go inside your PC--can also be great for backing up your precious files that currently reside on your PC's internal drives. As luck would have it, today's external storage devices are extremely fast and reliable. With USB 2.0, External SATA, and FireWire connections, you can shuttle data to and fro with great speed and efficiency.

If you maintain a home network with several PC's all linked up, you may want to invest in a NAS, or network attached storage device. NAS devices provide every computer on your network with a means of centralized storage, which is great for organization and storing and retrieving data from any node on your network.

Today's Hard Drive Technology

It wasn't too long ago that 1 gigabyte was considered a copious amount of storage. But, as Moore's Law predicts, devices keep getting cheaper, faster, and more spacious. You can now pick up a single hard drive to meet all your storage needs. As of this writing, the maximum capacity of a hard drive is 1024GB, a massive amount of storage that'll provide ample room for all your mp3s, photos, videos, games, applications , and more.

Internal Hard Drives

Before shopping for a new storage device you must ask yourself one question: internal or external? An internal hard drive is a device that actually goes inside of your PC; it connects via cables to your PC's motherboard. When you've installed an internal hard drive, it'll covertly reside inside of your PC along with the memory, power unit, motherboard and other internal hardware that makes your computer tick. It's not difficult to install an internal hard drive, but if you're not comfortable opening up your PC, unscrewing a few screws, and attaching a few cables, then perhaps an external drive will be more to your liking.

Two types of internal hard drives are available right now: PATA and SATA. PATA -Parallel Advanced Technology Attachment; aka IDE--is older and requires you to do a little extra work to get one up and running, such as configuring jumper cables to master or slave settings on the drive itself.

PATA drives also have thicker cables that connect them to your PC's motherboard. If your PC supports SATA--Serial ATA--then you should opt for this newer kid on the block. With SATA drives, you won't need to fumble around with jumper settings, and SATA drives utilize thinner cables, which can improve air flow, thereby keeping your PC's insides nice and cool.

SATA drives have a slight speed advantage, but I must stress the word "slight", as you probably won't see a noticeable difference when comparing the two hard drive technologies. Since SATA drives are newer, you can be confident that SATA interfaces will continue to be supported on all new PCs; the same can't be said for the older PATA drives, so if your PC can do SATA, opt for it.

External Hard Drives

An external storage device is a self-contained unit; everything that makes the storage device run is housed in an enclosure that is usually light weight and small enough to make it conveniently portable.

You connect your external hard drive to one of your PC's various ports, such as USB 2.0 or FireWire. External hard drives are the easiest to get up and running. They also come in handy when you need more storage; if you've already filled your computer with the maximum number of internal hard drives possible, externals can provide you with even more storage!

Speed or Capacity?

Do you desire a lightning fast hard drive or a drive that'll house myriad files, boasting a gigantic storage capacity? Well, you'll need ask yourself what you'll be doing with your new hard drive. Tasks like processing digital video can greatly be sped up with a faster hard drive. If you intend to use your hard drive mainly for storage, then a drive with 750 GB of storage will suit your needs perfectly. It goes without saying, though, that the faster or more spacious your prospective hard drive is, the more expensive it'll be. Happy storage shopping!

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