Should I Upgrade my HDD?

[PCKid777]

Well, I have an aging system with an IBM 40Gb Ultra ATA 100 and a Western Digital 80Gb Ultra ATA 100 HDD. I don't need more space, as I already have 65Gb of free space. However, I am tired of load times. (With McAfee Shield enabled at startup, it takes like two minutes from pressing the power button to a fully loaded desktop). I am wondering if its worth it to spend $80 or so for a SATA HDD (I'm considering a WD Caviar SE WD1200JS 120Gb SATA II or something similar). Anybody know if that will help with load times? (Or will the performance increase be negligible?) Or should I try more memory? Thanks.

 

[INeedCache]

The performance gains from SATA at present aren't great, and I think you'd end up being disappointed, although initially, as wusy stated, you'd be better from the formatting and fresh installation of Windows. Have you tuned up your PC lately -- checked for spyware, defragged, removed unnecessary programs from loading at startup? McAfee Shield isn't the most lean of programs of its type either.

 

[sylvez]

as all of the above mentioned, significant difference can only be achieved by doing some housekeeping.

1GB of ram is enough unless u dont wish to do some housekeeping i would think more ram would achieve some considerable improvement

 

[PCKid777]

I have done some cleanup (used AdwareSE two days ago and it got rid of like 100 critical objects and 200 other things) and I have even disabled many programs that used to load at startup. I defrag every other day or so (mainly my C drive needs it cuz the other drive is strictly for games). If I were to get RAID 0, I probably won't see much more improvement either would I? Would you agree with Sylvez too in that upgrading RAM (probably another 512Mb stick) would help? Otherwise, I'll probably reformat soon.

 

[borandi]

If I were to get RAID 0, I probably won't see much more improvement either would I? Would you agree with Sylvez too in that upgrading RAM (probably another 512Mb stick) would help? Otherwise, I'll probably reformat soon.

Raid 0 is only really useful if you play a lot of games (to reduce load times) or you run your computer as a server.

RAM always helps 😀 But a reformat and OS reinstall will help initally.

 

[PCKid777]

Well thanks to everybody who replied. I'll hold onto my HDDs for now and will reformat later (I got to figure out what I want to keep) and will save up for a newer rig.

 

[PCKid777]

I would if I were rich. As a high school student taking a couple AP courses and two more honors classes, I'm basically using my birthday money and some of my savings from last summer since I don't have a job right now. Hopefully I will get a good-paying job this summer so I can eventually get a nice dual core laptop or something for my senior graduation present... But for now, I'm trying to keep my spending "low", and since I don't have to buy HDDs, I can afford my new case (mine's way too loud) and a nice Hyundai 19in LCD... 😀