Adding A New Hd

I have a mini towercase, my computer hass been awesome for 3 years but now the hard drive seems like its shrinking w/ all the movies and audio and Linux ISO's. So I'm going to probably get a new 40GB or 80GB HD, I have the latest BIOS update from HP, my computer does support 80GB but im unsure how high of capasity it will support.

Would I be right in thinking that my computer would over heat to take up the extra 3.5 bay with a HD?

I want the bigger drive to be the boot drive, so, do I make the original HD slave to the new one?

What about the CD-ROM drive? Do I need to change any I/O settings on it?

Will one of the HDs slow the other down?

Do the HDs have to have the same filesystem?

I want to Format the new HD (over 40GB) to FAT-32, I've heard this is possible, really?

Can you tell any differance in speed with a 5400RPM drive vs. a 7200RPM drive?

Is there any software I can use to find some of this information?

Thanx, I really appreciate you guys on this board, and if I ask to many quesions let me know.. :rant:

#37950

***Would I be right in thinking that my computer would over heat to take up the extra 3.5 bay with a HD?

Maybe - if you have a spare 5.25" slot it might be better to stick it in there with some sort of bracket.

***I want the bigger drive to be the boot drive, so, do I make the original HD slave to the new one?

I think so, but check with someone else, or just try it - i don't *think* anything bad will happen if we're wrong.

***What about the CD-ROM drive? Do I need to change any I/O settings on it?

Only if you are putting the new or old hdd on the same ide channel as it - but i don't think you are given the other quote.

***Will one of the HDs slow the other down?

Maybe again [sorry] If its bad you could buy an ide pci card so you don't have to have any slave drives.

***Do the HDs have to have the same filesystem?

No, but your os needs to be able to read both if you want to use them.

It is possible to format large fat32 partitions... i have a 120Gb drive split in half - half NTFS/half fat32.

Yes there will be a noticeable difference in speed, but it depends on other things too. To find out, find the drives 'internal data transfer rate.' That tells you how fast the drive is capable of actually shifting the data.

fissy

And on a kind of related note: can i put an NTFS drive in a linux system as a slave drive? The system already has Mandrake 9.1 on a 6GB drive at present.

#37961

Originally posted by ihartmacz@Jul 4 2003, 09:04 PM

I have a mini towercase, my computer hass been awesome for 3 years but now the hard drive seems like its shrinking w/ all the movies and audio and Linux ISO's. So I'm going to probably get a new 40GB or 80GB HD, I have the latest BIOS update from HP, my computer does support 80GB but im unsure how high of capasity it will support.

Is there any software I can use to find some of this information?

Thanx, I really appreciate you guys on this board, and if I ask to many quesions let me know..  :rant:

Would I be right in thinking that my computer would over heat to take up the extra 3.5 bay with a HD?

Provided you have good air flow or install a case fan, this may not be a problem.

I want the bigger drive to be the boot drive, so, do I make the original HD slave to the new one?

Yes.

What about the CD-ROM drive? Do I need to change any I/O settings on it?

As long as it is on the secondary channel, no settings need to be changed.

Will one of the HDs slow the other down?

This depends on the controller speed. If your IDE controller supports UDMA133 and your drive supports it as well, then it will use it.

Do the HDs have to have the same filesystem?

No, file system is partition dependant. You can have FAT32, NTFS, ext2, ext3 , etc. on one drive.

I want to Format the new HD (over 40GB) to FAT-32, I've heard this is possible, really?

If you have a Win98 bootable floppy, it can be done.

Can you tell any differance in speed with a 5400RPM drive vs. a 7200RPM drive?

May be noticable when opening large files or moving large files.

fissyb

No problems adding, but did you enable the ntfs module? Read access may work well, but writing to it is problemmatic.

#38048

Why FAT32? Don't you have XP? If you have XP/2000, the only way to go is NTFS. If you have Pre 2000, I guess you don't have a choice then.

#38053

I hate NTFS for some reason. FAT-32 has been my best friend for a very long time. And NTFS (for me anyway) has slower file access. Windows 9x= awesome!

#38242

Originally posted by ihartmacz@Jul 5 2003, 08:44 PM

I hate NTFS for some reason. FAT-32 has been my best friend for a very long time. And NTFS (for me anyway) has slower file access. Windows 9x= awesome!

>.<

Errrrm...are you serious or is this a joke?

Really, I can't tell if you're joking...

#38244

I think he's serious. >.

#38249

He's being serious about NTFS being slower than FAT32 - it's a fact.

The trade-off is that NTFS is allegedly more secure, and better at managing larger drives, which I assume is the reason why drives less than 20ish GB are recommended to be formatted by FAT32 rather than NTFS.

#38393

Yer right, I'm as serious as a heart attack . I'll try the WinFS when it's out with longhorn, but for now my FS is FAT-32 (I went FAT-16 in my DOS days)..

Anyway, I am going to find some diagnostic software to find out some of these things.

plus sience today is Sunday the adds at BestBuy come out, usually they have Maxtor drives on sale pretty cheap!

Ya heard! (Y) :rant: Thanx a lot for your help w/ this, keep the advice coming!

@constrasutra: I installed RedHat Linux for a short while two nights ago, very awesome I must say it was very awesome, it really got to be not worth it because I had the new versions of openoffice and KDE on a CD

BTW, I didn't read any of my CDs i put in, not even the first Linux CD. It did recognise my external USB CD-RW drive though, which, I'm really proud of linux for!

I havent tryed BSD, huh.... :::Thinking about Darwin and how I had wished it would work:::

#38435

Originally posted by applelover@Jul 5 2003, 03:47 AM

fissyb

No problems adding, but did you enable the ntfs module? Read access may work well, but writing to it is problemmatic.

Its running mandrake 9.1 which has the module enabled from install - i think.

how would i get it working?

put the drive as slave

then boot up and it will be under /mnt somewhere?

thanks,

fissy

#38476

Its not the security that makes NTFS better (though it does have more security features), its that it has JOURNALING, a feature in all modern (ie. not FAT) file systems.

Remember those annoying scandisks if you rebooted the wrong way, they are gone in NTFS, along with data corruption.

The main reason 9x would randomly break was because of data corruption, because in FAT, if you did anything slightly wrong, data would go missing or become inusable.

Journaling solves this problem.

And ihartmacz, you're an idiot if you use FAT32. Its like saying im gonna use a 486 "just for the heck of it" when you have a nice P4 sitting next to you.

#38491

@Contrasutra: Dude, Thats in your opinion, as long as I take care of it and scan it every once in a while (Which i dont really mind doing at all) FAT-32 serves me very well! It gives me compatibility like non other! I appreciate your view on this matter :bow: . But don't call me an idoit on my choice of file systems! They are both great FS's but I chose FAT-32, And if you have NTFS, or EXT2, UFS, EXT3, or RAW, I don't care, and I just know you might have chosen your file system on a basis of which will work better/faster/secure for you.

Thank you guys for all of your help! :rock:

#38861

Its not "both are good", NTFS is BETTER than FAT32. Its that simple. If you want to be nostalgic and use an old file system, be my guest.

the ONLY reason to use FAT32 is if you need a partition that is writable by both Linux and Windows.

Just like how ext3 is better than ext2. Its a simple matter of one file system replacing another. Why not use FAT16 while your at it.

#38863

LOL, I didn't say I was being nostalgic, just wanted more compatibility over NTFS, I thought NTFS was writeable by Linux too... FAT-16... hmmm... i'm not sure FAT-16 supports 10GB, lol, just kidding... I just think I dont need most of the features of NTFS, including jounaling, I dont loose to much when I reboot... I've got Norton Utilities, I can get Stuff i delete. Ill keep an open mind, nexit time I reinstall XP I will format to NTFS, and give it anoughter try, OK?

Anyway, I dont wanna get into a big thing about File systems... "its all good"

#38885

you're right, no one really needs journaling.

#39011

Originally posted by contrasutra@Jul 8 2003, 11:44 AM

you're right, no one really needs journaling.

#39017

ihartmacz,

Well you have been babying your file system. Waite till you get a real nice crash and you can kiss your data good-by. Take it from a computer tech NTFS is the better choice. Another point is that since you chose to stay with a SIX YEAR OLD OS you can't roll your system back if something were to go wrong. You will have to reinstall. Ooo sounds so fun! But then he says he like Windows 98 better as well. Well it take all kinds. Why anyone would waste there time trying to make Win98 look and act like Aqua is beyond me. It just can't render the icons in full 32bit-alpha blending. If you can't even render the icons right why bother. Same goes for trying to emulate Aqua on Win2000. I not saying Win2000 is a bad OS its not. But it is graphicly chalenged. I find his coments on Fat32 and Windows 98 refreshingly funny! :woot:

#39094

If it makes any diff, im running OS/2 2.0 on HPFS...

You guys convinced me, i need to get w/ the times, when I get the new one i will format it to NTFS

#39535