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Want to upgrade my hard drive and memory..suggestions?

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John Drake
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 12:26 am    Post subject: Want to upgrade my hard drive and memory..suggestions? Reply with quote

Just to be clear, these are my stats:

P4 2.8 GHz HT processor
512 MB DDR-SDRAM (it's two 256 bars)
80GB Hard Drive
Motherboard (just because): Chipset: Intel i865P/PE/G/i848P

Now, I want to upgrade to 2GB of memory, and a hard drive in the 160-250 GB range.

What brands are the best (or just really good) for each? Also, for the memory, if I buy a 2GB memory that comes in two 1GB bars, could I still keep the 512MB I have installed, or would it clash? It's not really that important, but it would be good to know.

Thanks in advance.
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Tom Bair
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 1:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

If you install 2 1 GB Dimms, you'll have to remove the 2 256 MB Dimms.
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moondoggie
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 6:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

crucial is a good place for quality memory. i also like kingston ram as well. both of them have been good to me over the years Smile
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John Drake
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 9:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks guys. That Crucial website is really helpful. Though doesn't say anything about hard drives, I'll keep looking into that.

Do I really need 2GB of RAM? I'm thinking I do, but a second opinion is always welcome. I run Maple 10, Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5, Adobe Encore, Adobe Photoshop, CircuitMaker and Electronics Workbench, and many others.
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alt.don
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 10:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hello John,

You can never have enough RAM in my opinion. Heck, I have 4GB of OCZ myself Smile. You may also want to look at a Western Digital Raptor Hard Drive. They are 10K vice the 7.2K more commonly seen. It is nice. It only took me 10 minutes to install Win XP Pro with my 4GB of RAM and my Raptor hard drive. It isn't too noisy either. Bottom line is that adding as much RAM as possible is a very nice and relatively cheap upgrade. Hope this helps.

BTW, should you not want to get a huge hard drive then simply buy a Network Attached Storage (NAS). Though hard drives are dirt cheap.
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Giro
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 22, 2006 12:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have never filled my 1GB RAM not even when hammering! And I have multiple instances of GEdit, Firefox, Gterminal and lots of other apps. I guess Windows might grab more RAM but I would like someone to show me.

top output
Code:
Mem:   1036136k total,   592476k used,   443660k free,       96k buffers
Swap:   610460k total,        0k used,   610460k free,   361736k cached

cat /proc/meminfo
Code:

MemTotal:      1036136 kB
MemFree:        433740 kB
Buffers:            96 kB
Cached:         363656 kB
SwapCached:          0 kB
Active:         343488 kB
Inactive:       207160 kB
HighTotal:      130496 kB
HighFree:          120 kB
LowTotal:       905640 kB
LowFree:        433620 kB
SwapTotal:      610460 kB
SwapFree:       610460 kB
Dirty:            2460 kB
Writeback:           0 kB
Mapped:         243980 kB
Slab:            35264 kB
CommitLimit:   1128528 kB
Committed_AS:   609960 kB
PageTables:       1924 kB
VmallocTotal:   114680 kB
VmallocUsed:      9788 kB
VmallocChunk:   104740 kB


And this laptop has been running all day with mySQL running with a 40Mb+ database and other databases. Plus Apache/PHP, Fetchmail, postfix etc.. Sounds like people like to get RAM when it is not needed. I do agree that if you are rendering or hardcore gaming or running 100 memory intensive apps (this is an example not scientific) you might need to have the max RAM you can get.


Last edited by Giro on Sun Oct 22, 2006 12:34 am; edited 1 time in total
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Tom Bair
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 22, 2006 12:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Seems I remember Windows XP has a 2 GB limit on handling System Memory (RAM), but I went up to 4 GB because I use Photoshop quite often and have assigned a 2 GB scratch page to my RAM.

But rarely is XP maxing out more than 800 MB or so of RAM under normal operating conditions.

I see Fry's has a Maxtor 300 GB Ultry DMA/100 Hard Drive for only $79.99 --- blows me away! It's got a 16 MB buffer and runs at 7200 RPM with a Fluid Dynamic Bearing (FDB). I think their website is:

http://www.outpost.com

Tom
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Giro
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 22, 2006 12:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It is a pain I got six 80 Gig drives a couple of years ago for about £40.00 GBP +VAT each and now I can get a 250 Gb 16Mb cache drive for £42.95 GBP +VAT each From here. Harddisk space is even cheaper now (or is it the same price but size has gone up? )!
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Groovicus
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 22, 2006 1:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was just looking at a HITACHI Deskstar T7K500 HDT725032VLAT80 (0A33405) 320GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache IDE Ultra

$89.99 US

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822145128

The Maxtor is $3.75 per gig, and has better cache. THe Hitachi is $3.55 per gig, and I am not sure if the latency is any different. And of course, this is SATA vs IDE .

I've had no experience with a Hitachi. Anybody?
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John Drake
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 6:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Are these good?

Seagate 250GB Barracuda 7200.10 - 8MB Cache, 7200 rpm, SATA II (3Gb/s) with NCQ

Hitachi Deskstar 250GB - 7200RPM, 8MB Cache Buffer, SATAII

(what's SATA II? is it the same?)

And also, since I have an 80gb hard drive, will I notice any slowdown or something if I put a 250-300 GB hard drive? Or is that irrelevant?
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