New hard Drive

Mr. Detail

I have a 7 yr. old Dell Dimension 4500 home computer that needs a hard drive upgrade. It seems to take forever for it to load up in the morning when we first turn it on. It came originally with a Pentium 4, 2.0 GHz processor.

Can anyone give me a reasonably priced recommendation on what to replace this old one with?

Thanks much.........

Chef

Depending on the Hard Drive interface of that computer (which is pretty old), I'm pretty sure it will only support IDE (Pata), but if not you can grab a SATA hdd and just chuck it in, format and your ready and loaded. Depending on the rest of your specs, I'd say get a 160GB, or 250GB. They are really cheap these days, most likely below $100 and so yeah.

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Mr. Detail

Chef,
What do you sya to these comments on the same question I had on another forum board?
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"Not much you can do unfortunately. Probably the biggest bang for your buck will come from maxing out the RAM capacity for the system. It being a Dell system, processor upgrade options will be limited to the point where it's not really going to be worth bothering. Especially given the issues with the Pentium 4's performance overall that lead Intel to deadend the entire line and go back to the Pentium 3 for the basis of the Core and Core 2 lines. RAM would be your best bet, and that will only get you so much. Ultimately you're just going to need a new computer or to basically live without a lot of newer program upgrades that will assume ever faster systems as the norm."

and

"I have to recommend you stay with less than 127GB hard disks."

bakuryu

I would go with upgrading the ram and also getting a new hard drive with higher rpm and cache. But overall it's still better to get a new computer ... that's better use of money in long run.

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Mr. Detail

bakuryu,

With myself being somewhat of a neophyte when it comes to knowing exactly what to purchase, could you give me an actual recommendation
of a name brand hard drive that is reputable and that would fit your suggestions (i.e. higher rpm and cache)?

In other words, what type of numbers would I look for? I agrre with you as far as better money spent in the long run but it is just not in our families budget right now.

Thanks!

bakuryu

so what's the amount that you are willing to spend ??

Chef

Well it depends on how the rest of the system specifications. Like most people I know, real life and forums would have their old systems maxed out in terms of CPU and RAM either running as a baseline computer for another computer or just light use.

I suppose you can upgrade your RAM, but its not really worth it, upgrading your RAM on your computer means its too old of a interface and will also cost alot more. I'd say just upgrade to a normal sata or pata inferface hard drive, really I wouldn't spend more then $150 on a old machine like yours.

Mr. Detail

Bakuryu, pretty much what the Chef said in the last post. ($150 max).

So now that we have determined what to upgrade, can any of you guys give me a name brand or two recommendation? I know absolutely nothing when it comes to a decent name brand hard drive. I am falling behind the curve these days.

Wolfie276

u got Hitachi and Samsung that are pretty good HDDs

and a Seagate of course, theyre awesome

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Mr. Detail

What about numbers guys? My existing HD is as I stated in Post #1, a Pentium 4 with 2.0 GHz. What sizing would work within this older box?