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Thread ID: 61251	2005-08-30 02:08:00	Upgrading your hard drive	ironman (6770)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1357197	2005-08-30 02:08:00	Hi there, I have a P4 2.4 Ghz running win xp sp2 with 512 of ram. After reading the article last month in PC World, I decided to upgrade my hard drive, (I only have 40G). I have checked with Acer, who are the manufactureres and even tried to quote the motherboard, but they tell me there is no BIOS upgrade I can get and that I shouldn't put bigger than a 80G hard drive in. Having checked around for some hard drives, I find that there aren't any available with 8mb of cache, hence I would have a slow hard drive. Is this really true, I can't have a bigger drive than that, (the article said it should be able to read 137G), which would mean I could put a 120G drive in. The pc is not quite 3 years old, I don't want to go for a full pc upgrade. Any suggestions? Your help, as always, is most appreciated.	ironman (6770)
1357198	2005-08-30 02:14:00	The difference in cache size won't make any noticble difference.(though knowing how the bigger brands operate you may only have a 4500rpm drive in her at the moment,in which case a new 7200rpm drive will give a definite speed increase) Which is only going to be noticble if your OS is in good condition (and knowing how the bigger brands operate they don't set up their comps to run very well in the first place) Tenthly, You can get software that allows a drive to be used that is larger then what your bios suports. I presume this is a desktop system?	Metla (12)
1357199	2005-08-30 02:26:00	It is very unlikely there is any motherboard capable of running a P4 2.4 gig CPU that cant at LEAST run a 120gig hard drive(bios support for a 120 I mean). I am guessing the the help desk person at Acer has never seen inside a PC lol (im sure he/she was trying) I would say you would be very safe trying a up to a 120 gig (i assume we are NOT talking about a notebook but a desktop PC) As for Cache, I agree the Cache size of a hard drive beyond 2MB is not hugely improtant, there is a small performance boost with 8MB but it is not huge, I wouldn't worry about it. Buy a 120 as they are not much more exspensive than a 80 gig.	Battleneter (60)
1357200	2005-08-30 02:27:00	The difference in cache size won't make any noticble difference. Oh yes it does!	pctek (84)
1357201	2005-08-30 02:28:00	Hi there, I have a P4 2.4 Ghz running win xp sp2 with 512 of ram. After reading the article last month in PC World, I decided to upgrade my hard drive, (I only have 40G). I have checked with Acer, who are the manufactureres and even tried to quote the motherboard, but they tell me there is no BIOS upgrade I can get and that I shouldn't put bigger than a 80G hard drive in. Having checked around for some hard drives, I find that there aren't any available with 8mb of cache, hence I would have a slow hard drive. Is this really true, I can't have a bigger drive than that, (the article said it should be able to read 137G), which would mean I could put a 120G drive in. The pc is not quite 3 years old, I don't want to go for a full pc upgrade. Any suggestions? Your help, as always, is most appreciated. If indeed you are restricted to a 80GB drive, add a second hard drive which also means you can backup from one drive to the other.	dolby digital (5073)
1357202	2005-08-30 02:30:00	80 gig drives with 8mb cache: IDE ascent.co.nz SATA ascent.co.nz	Greven (91)
1357203	2005-08-30 02:32:00	If indeed you are restricted to a 80GB drive, add a second hard drive which also means you can backup from one drive to the other. I think Acer are probably wrong. I have never seen a P4 MB not capable of running a 120gig HDD out of the box and I have dealt with hundreds (probably thousands actually). As he could not fully identify the MB model number, I would say Acer were guessing or trying to flog him off at best.	Battleneter (60)
1357204	2005-08-30 02:35:00	80 gig drives with 8mb cache: IDE ascent.co.nz SATA ascent.co.nz Great site for paying to much (as usual) , I suggest. www.dragonpc.co.nz	Battleneter (60)
1357205	2005-08-30 05:31:00	Heres one I am buying www.dragonpc.co.nz Samsung 160GB IDE UDMA/100 8MB 7200rpm	netchicken (4843)
1357206	2005-08-30 07:09:00	Just a question relating to HDDs. I see that Hitachi has released SATA - 300's now. Does this benefit a lot from SATA - 150? I may be dreaming up but does it give the Ultra SCSI 320 a run for its money if say you had a pair of RAID SATA - 300 set up. Cheers.	Nomad (952)
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