The main storage location for stationary and mobile computers is the hard disk. Choosing the right device can improve the performance of your operating system.
Instructions
Step 1
Start by choosing a hard drive form factor. For stationary computers, 3.5-inch hard drives with IDE and SATA interfaces are used. Laptops use reduced copies of these drives, with a 2.5-inch form factor.
Step 2
If you don't want to use your new hard drive as your primary equipment, consider purchasing an external drive. The use of this device allows you to have the necessary information at hand in any situation.
Step 3
Find out the size of your hard drive. It should be noted right away that this is far from the most important characteristic of the device. Buy a hard drive with more storage if you are confident that you will make the most of the available space.
Step 4
Pay special attention to the speed of the hard drive. This is a very important parameter. Hard drives with slow read and write speeds can degrade the performance of your computer. This characteristic directly depends on the spindle speed.
Step 5
For an office computer, a hard drive with a spindle speed of 5400-5900 rpm is quite suitable. These devices emit relatively little noise and consume less power. For a powerful gaming PC, choose a 7200 RPM hard drive or more.
Step 6
Check the type of hard drive interface. SATA hard drives are divided into several categories. The newer the type of hard drive, the faster the device will transfer data. To work with modern PCs, you must use a disk with a cache of 16-32 MB.
Step 7
There are special "system" hard drives. They, as a rule, have a relatively small amount of memory, but they are endowed with a very high information transfer rate. Purchase this hard drive if you plan to connect it to a powerful computer. This will ensure the quality of the operating system.
