How to find compatible hard drive?

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Solution
alceryes
SATA devices and interfaces are completely backwards compatible. A SATA3 drive will work fine on a SATA interface and vice versa. Of course, the speed will be limited to the drives and/or interfaces maximum performance.
Make sure you backup everything before you replace the drive. Do you have the restore discs for your system or just a Windows disc? There is a possibility that the HP restore discs won't use the full drive if you pick up a 4+TB but that's the only sticking point I can think of (wouldn't hurt anything, you'd just be short-stroking the drive).
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SATA devices and interfaces are completely backwards compatible. A SATA3 drive will work fine on a SATA interface and vice versa. Of course, the speed will be limited to the drives and/or interfaces maximum performance.
Make sure you backup everything before you replace the drive. Do you have the restore discs for your system or just a Windows disc? There is a possibility that the HP restore discs won't use the full drive if you pick up a 4+TB but that's the only sticking point I can think of (wouldn't hurt anything, you'd just be short-stroking the drive).
 
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Solution


I don't have a clue since this is my brother's desktop instead! I just backed up all the stuff I wanted into an external hard drive

 
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The easiest way to move your stuff is going to be to clone it. I use Acronis for cloning, it's a pretty easy program. Just pull the cords out of the CD drive and put them in the new HDD, clone everything you want then remove the old drive and plug the CD drive back in. There are a bunch of different cloning softwares, some have an option to make the new drive bootable. Keep an eye out for this as if it is an option you will need to select it.
 
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Right, any SATA 3.5" 7200 rpm Hard Drive will do.. the size depends on your needs, it could be smaller or larger dependidng on the data you have on the old HD and the price you can afford. The difference between 32 or 64MB caché is speed and efficiency, as well as SATA 3 or 6.. Larger caché is better but smaller are priced lower. Good brands are Seagate, Western Digital, Toshiba, Hitachi.. in my experience Western Digital is more reliable than Seagate. Hitachi or Toshiba are said to be even better.

Desktop Hard Drives
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007603%20600457692%20600457691%20600457686%20600003489%20600457682&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&Order=PRICE&PageSize=20

Top Internal Hard Drives
http://www.pcworld.com/product/collection/1652/top-5-internal-hard-drives.html

Who makes the most reliable hard drives?
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/175089-who-makes-the-most-reliable-hard-drives

 
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Is it possible to just clone Windows? I have all I need already on my external hdd

Searched my whole house and I couldn't find a Windows 7 disc anywhere
 
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I'm on the Acronis site, which one is ideal for me?
Acronis Backup for Windows Server, PC, or Windows Server Essentials?
 
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Only True Image 2015 is available and the clone disk option is unavailable for free trials
 
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