Hard Drive

What to look for when buying a Hard Disk Drive (HDD)

So you're looking at buying a new hard drive. Your hard drive is arguably the most important component of your laptop or desktop computer. Storage has never been cheaper and for a relatively small figure you can boost your computer's capacity. But buying a new hard drive isn't always easy. There is a tangle of terminology to deal with and there are a number of factors to consider.

Hard drives can cost anywhere from $50 to $1000. The average internal hard drive will cost $150 and the external equivalent will cost around $200. Some of the most common brands for hard drives are HP, Western Digital, Seagate, Hitachi, Samsung and IBM.

The key factors to consider when purchasing a hard drive are capacity, enclosure and interface. Capacity refers to the size of the hard drive and can range from around 40 GB to over 1 TB (1000 GB). The most common hard drive size for laptops these days is around 300 GB. Enclosure can be either internal or external. In most cases an external hard drive is the same as the internal hard drive except it is enclosed in a stand alone case. The interface refers to how the hard drive connects to the computer and the decision would depend on the supported interfaces of the device you are connecting to. The most common interfaces to consider are serial ATA, USB, SCSI, IDE/EIDE, fibre channel, parallel and firewire.

Other factors to consider are spindle speed, external data transfer rate, HDD form factor, seek time and platform. Common spindle speeds are 5,400 RPM, 7,200 RPM, 10,000 RPM and 15,000 RPM. External data transfer rates can range from 20 MBps to 350 MBps. HDD form factors include 3.5 inch, 2.5 inch and 2.5 inch ultra slim line.