Mal ,'Ariel'
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3 year old Dell means it needs IDE as opposed to SATA. I can't remember the last time I had a hard drive fail. Most of my drives are Western Digital, but I have a Seagate and a couple of Maxtors too. One Maxtor drive acts a bit wonky in a one particular computer, but that's all the trouble I've had.
Here's a link to a bunch of hard drives that should work just fine.
How many drives does it have now?
IDE can support a total of four drives (counting hard drives and CD/DVD). If that computer already has two drives, you may need to buy an IDE cable, as each IDE cable can support only two drives. You may also need to buy a power 'Y' cable (eta: if there are no spare power connectors), but probably not....
If you buy a drive in a retail box, it should include a cable and screws.
Like this one: [link]
If you buy an OEM drive you'll save money, but it won't come with a cable or screws. OTOH, you might not need a cable. If you look at the cable connecting to your hard drive and see another connector on it that isn't plugged into anything, then you're golden. You'd probably need screws though unless you have an old computer still hanging around that you can steal them from. It's possible that the case doesn't need screws to add a hard drive, you can probably figure it out from looking where the hard drive will go.
You can get screws like these: [link]
It's a Dimension 4600, original equipment, which means one 40-G hard drive, 1 48x CD_RW. I should have plenty of room on the IDE.
Dell will only sell me an additional 80G internal; the specs are
Internal, 80 GB, 7200 RPM, EIDE Interface, Up to 100 MBps, 8.9 ms Seek Time (Read), 2 MB Cache, For Dell Dimension B110/1100 Desktops and Precision Workstations 450/650. $60.00 plus shipping.
That seems kind of a rip-off compared to the 120G Western Digital you linked to.
I dunno that it is a rip-off, but 80GB isn't the sweet-spot of capacity vs. price anymore. It just doesn't cost hardly any more to get a much larger capacity.
I need to get around to upgrading or adding a drive to my Dimension as well. Big drives are necessary for music and video, yassuh.
That seems kind of a rip-off compared to the 120G Western Digital you linked to.
I paid $70 for an 80 GB HD for a computer here at work just this past Tuesday, so it's actually not that bad a price. You'll probably be happier with the bigger drive, though.
Did folks see this great Woot contest?
I paid $70 for an 80 GB HD for a computer here at work just this past Tuesday, so it's actually not that bad a price.
I regularly see deals on dealnews.com for top brand hard drives at 50 cents/GB.
My first hard drive came out to $10/Meg.