New SATA Hard Drive

[Willz]

Hi, i am thinking about getting another hard drive as my current Samsung 160gb and Western Digital Caviar SE 250gb are nearly out of space, i was thinking about purchasing one of the following: Western Digital 320GB SATA II, Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB, Samsung SpinPoint T HD300LJ 300GB or Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 NCQ 250GB. SATA II can work with older SATA right?, Also, which of those hard drives is the best?

I am wanting to keep my 2 current hard drives in aswell, there both IDE, it's possible to use IDE and SATA together right?, and how would i configure the sata hard drive to work?

 

[donkey42]

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB, Samsung SpinPoint T HD300LJ 300GB or Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 NCQ 250GB. SATA II can work with older SATA right?, Also, which of those hard drives is the best?

i would sway towards the seagate, but everybody has an opinion on HDD manufactures

I am wanting to keep my 2 current hard drives in aswell, there both IDE, it's possible to use IDE and SATA together right?

yeah, no problem (dependant on the mobo revision & you will either need a PSU with SATA power connectors or power adaptors) and SATA l or ll are completly separate from IDE (different connectors, so you can have 4 IDE devices & 4 SATA devices, at the same time

and how would i configure the sata hard drive to work?

it depends, if you have a SATA controller, just connect it to either SATA / SATA ll connection, and it shoul just work,

 

[Willz]

i have about 4 sata power connectors in a box for the PSU somewere, the thing i done understand is, some SATA hard drives has a regular Molex connector, so whats a SATA power connector do?

 

[thomas234]

My SATA drive doesn't work using a standard molex, I bought a convertor from my local PC shop for a quid that converts a molex plug to a sata power plug. It looks just like the attachment.

 

[donkey42]

i didn´t know SATA drives somtimes come with molex connectors, if the drive has a molex connector, use molex
if it doesn´t, use the SATA connector or an adaptor

so whats a SATA power connector do?

power a SATA device

 

[Big B]

Some have both the molex and SATA power connector to make the switch over easier for people. Not necessary at all these days, but certainly a nice gesture. If you have a drive with both power connectors, use one or the other, not both. You can damage the drive that way apparently.

 

[max12590]

Yea, mine have both. There is a sticker on the back that says not to use them both. I used the 2 SATA connectors on my PSU and then used molex for the other 2.