I'm looking to add a new hard drive to my computer since I am starting to run low on the 80GB that came with it. Is there any difference in terms of speed between an external and an internal hard drive? I would like to get an internal hard drive, but I don't know if it would physically fit in my computer. Do they generally go into PCI or AGP slots? I have one PCI card slot that isn't being used, but it has a video card right above it and a network card right below it... I think the space may be too small to fit one. I think I still have two AGP slots left though. Would an external drive be just as fast if it were connected through USB 2.0?

7/30/2005 7:25:45 PM

7/30/2005 7:34:04 PM

Just get an external hard drive. In the mean time, you might want to put on a fire proof suit. You're about to enter a world of shit.

7/30/2005 7:37:43 PM

hard drives connect to the IDE socket things (or SATA). it seems unlikely that you have 2 AGP slots open.

7/31/2005 1:55:19 PM

very unlikely ^.

yeah so I would suggest for YOU an external hard drive since you don't know much about computers obviously. You'll just connect it to the USB port and ta da!

You can connect internal hard drives though using IDE ribbons. If you have one hard drive and 3 cd drives, chances are that you don't have an open connector on the ribbons though. Normally people can hook up 4 devices via IDE. So you could have 3 hard drives and 1 cd writer if you wanted. Internal hard drives are cheaper. You would need to mount it into the carriage using standard screws that should come with it or can purchase at the hard ware store, plug in a molex connector, and connect the ide ribbon. Then you would need to format the drive.
http://www.smartcomputing.com/Editorial/article.asp?article=articles/2004/w1510/07w02/07w02.asp&guid=

7/31/2005 3:21:06 PM