How often do you replace your hard drives?

kpxryda · Post by **kpxryda** » Sat May 22, 2004 12:53 am

I've formatted my computer countless times and my computer is never as fast as it used to be. Do hard drives slow down after a while? How often should you replace your hard drives?

Cypher · Post by **Cypher** » Sat May 22, 2004 1:04 am

When they die I replace them.

Depends on the speed of your current drive.
What are your system specs? There could be more to your slow downs.
Run latest Spybot and adaware updated also.
Both can be found at downloads.com

kpxryda · Post by **kpxryda** » Sat May 22, 2004 1:18 am

My system is very outdated compared to most of the people on here. It's only a T-Bird 1.4 GHZ with 256MB. I have both Spybot and Ad-Aware and run them almost everyday. I remember when I first built this computer, it was very quick and had no problems running multiple programs. Now when I try to run several programs at the same time, my computer just can't handle it anymore. And they aren't even big programs or anything. I'm usually just downloading files, running winamp or media player and browsing the web in several different windows. I'm not planning on upgrading this computer. I was just going to give it to my parents and build myself a new one. But I wanted to know if hard drives slow down after long use?

BaLa · Post by **BaLa** » Sat May 22, 2004 6:40 am

I never replace hard drives..unless of course they die..

might upgrade the primary master, but usually keep the old HDD for backups/storing other stuffs..
lik pr0n, mp3s and such

Brk · Post by **Brk** » Sat May 22, 2004 7:24 am

I replaced my IDE drives with SATA ones, which I recommend if your motherboard supports it.

deleted_acct · Post by **deleted_acct** » Sat May 22, 2004 9:26 am

Burke wrote:I replaced my IDE drives with SATA ones, which I recommend if your motherboard supports it.

MY new mobo supports it, what are the prices like for a sata hdd

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » Sat May 22, 2004 10:50 am

reformat roughly every 9-12 months for the average user who says "yes" to every activex installation and downloads bits of software all the time.

if you keep a computer clean software-wise and run xp or 2000, you can let it run for a number of years. in your case i would run with no less than 512 MB memory.

hdds don't slow down as far as i know, but as time progresses software becomes larger and more complex so that's what may be slowing you down. every reformat you also may have forgotten to enable DMA mode on your drives. i remember it happened to my desktop the the difference is huge.

hdds will slow down only due to very bad fragmentation. when it crashes, it also slows down no doubt. if you're still running the original drive which is 5400rpm, a new drive will help a ton. your processor has less of an impact for general purpose use.

-Jeremy

kpxryda wrote:My system is very outdated compared to most of the people on here. It's only a T-Bird 1.4 GHZ with 256MB. I have both Spybot and Ad-Aware and run them almost everyday. I remember when I first built this computer, it was very quick and had no problems running multiple programs. Now when I try to run several programs at the same time, my computer just can't handle it anymore. And they aren't even big programs or anything. I'm usually just downloading files, running winamp or media player and browsing the web in several different windows. I'm not planning on upgrading this computer. I was just going to give it to my parents and build myself a new one. But I wanted to know if hard drives slow down after long use?

BaLa · Post by **BaLa** » Sat May 22, 2004 10:50 am

Chillinhh wrote:MY new mobo supports it, what are the prices like for a sata hdd

http://www.newegg.com

LOL..

kpxryda · Post by **kpxryda** » Sat May 22, 2004 4:08 pm

Do you think there will be a considerable difference if I add another 256MB stick of ram and get a 7200 RPM hard drive? Also, do you guys know of any programs which tells you how fast your current hard drive and RAM is? I built this comp such a long time ago with a friend that I don't remember what's inside.

What do you think about this hard drive? Looks like a good deal from Newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDe ... 122&depa=0

kpxryda · Post by **kpxryda** » Sat May 22, 2004 4:22 pm

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » Sat May 22, 2004 4:36 pm

i have that same drive and it runs quickly and pretty quietly. opt for larger rather than smaller (eg at least 120gb) if you can afford it because the moment you begin editing and downloading video and burning DVDs, 80GB will fill up fast.

512MB memory will definitely boost performance with windows 2000 or xp and will often lessen lag as programs load and close.

kpxryda · Post by **kpxryda** » Sat May 22, 2004 4:41 pm

Jeremy wrote:i have that same drive and it runs quickly and pretty quietly. opt for larger rather than smaller (eg at least 120gb) if you can afford it because the moment you begin editing and downloading video and burning DVDs, 80GB will fill up fast.

512MB memory will definitely boost performance with windows 2000 or xp and will often lessen lag as programs load and close.

I have a question about memory. I ran this program called SiSoftware and for my memory it showed: 2x 133 (266mhz data rate). So it's a DDR SDRAM? Are all DDR memories 184 pin? Thanks.

g-c0de · Post by **g-c0de** » Sat May 22, 2004 4:59 pm

for the AMD athlon motherboard a 168pin DIMM is usually PC100-150 (only for desktop)

184pin is DDR only for the desktop

laptops can have DDR SDRAM but they have more pins

kpxryda · Post by **kpxryda** » Sat May 22, 2004 8:39 pm

g-c0de wrote:for the AMD athlon motherboard a 168pin DIMM is usually PC100-150 (only for desktop)

184pin is DDR only for the desktop

laptops can have DDR SDRAM but they have more pins

So you're saying that mine is an 184 pin?

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » Sat May 22, 2004 9:05 pm

yes. yours is 184 pin, the most common type at the moment.

ddr in desktops can only come in one form with 184 pins. it looks alot like sdram, but has 1 notch in it, vs sdram which has 2 notches and 168 pins.

kpxryda · Post by **kpxryda** » Sat May 22, 2004 9:41 pm

Alright, cool. Thanks...

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Sun May 23, 2004 8:00 am

Remember that software gets more bloated over time, with newer versions. Several years ago the same computer felt like it ran faster because you may have had a prior version of Windows, or your had an older version of antivirus, or not as much running in the background at the same time.

You might now have a newer version Windows such as 2K or XP, which will run slower on an older system than Win98 did. Also new antivirus programs....they run a LOT more system intensive now....they have to, so current antivirus software will bog down your system a lot more than antivirus apps from several years ago.

Plus more windows critical updates....all those security fixes put a little more overhead in your system.

Hard drives only slow down if they're beginning to fail...and that's usually a BIG slow down.

7,200 rpm hard drive, an 8-meg cache model, yes, an excellent boost over an old 5,400 rpm 2 meg model.

And adding RAM, 256 megs is decent for Win9X, but for 2K and especially XP...256 megs is too light.

kpxryda · Post by **kpxryda** » Sun May 23, 2004 7:06 pm

Thanks for all the info. But how do I find out how fast my current hard drive is?

koldchillah · Post by **koldchillah** » Mon May 24, 2004 11:26 am

kpxryda wrote:Thanks for all the info. But how do I find out how fast my current hard drive is?

open the case, write down the model number, then go to http://www.google.com and type: "hard drive model" "specs" or other similar variations. You can also go straight to the manufacturer's website or post it here and someone could probably tell right away.