[brozozo]

Is it really as simple as putting it in the bay and hooking it up?

I've never done this before, so I've got some noob questions:

I have enough SATA cables, but only one power cable. The power cable is kinda daisy chained. It has one plug, then more wire and another plug. Will this work okay? Will I have to fiddle with the jumpers to make everything gravy?

My current drive is a SATA/150. I bought a SATA/300 to augment my storage. From what I've heard, 150s aren't made anymore, and 300s are compatible with the older models. Is this correct?

[freespacegundam]

Assuming your power cable can reach the other drive it should be okay.  I installed a new 120GB SATA drive last christmas to augment my storage with my existing IDE drive.  I didn't really have to fiddle with any jumpers since I just hooked the SATA drive to SATA 1 to ensure it wasn't the main drive.  Assuming you want to keep the old drive as the boot drive, just hook the new drive into SATA1 or whichever one is free and leave the old drive as is.

Hope that helps.

[Shade]

For the hardware part, yeah, it pretty much is that simple. The SATA cables are keyed so you can't connect them incorrectly, as are the power cables for SATA discs, so all you really need to worry about is making sure you connect it to the right SATA port on the motherboard - Some have seperate connectors for raid and non-raid discs, so just make sure you use an appropriate one and that's that.

As for power, multiple drives connected to a single power cable will not be a problem unless you have a poor PSU, and as for backwards compatibility, SATA-300 is backwards compatible, and are in fact often set to SATA-150 from the factory requiring you to change the jumper setting if you want to use the full speed.

So basically, installing a SATA drive is hardly any more complicated than hooking up a TV. Power and signal, and that's it, just a bit more fiddly since there's not much room to maneouver inside the case. In fact, if you include a VCR, the TV is more complicated

[brozozo]

Thanks a lot, guys. I've been sweating about this a lot. I don't want to **** up somehow and ruin my drives.

What about the initial boot up? Do I need to mess around with some settings in BIOS?

[redsniper]

Nah. You can just boot up like normal and handle everything from Windows.

[brozozo]

A few more questions...

I really had to squeeze the drive into the 3.5 bay. No joke, some paint scraped off. I doubt there's any significantly measurable space between the drives, and the screw holes for the bay and drive don't line up. Is it okay if the drive just sits there? It sure as hell isn't going anywhere else. Should I shop around for a bracket thingy to fit the drive in the 5.25 bay?

The new drive is fairly large (500GB). Does parrtioning affect performance?

[redsniper]

I'm not an authority on any of this, but...

I'm quite sure it's okay to leave it unscrewed, especially since it sounds like you got wedged in there pretty tight.

I have no idea how partitioning would affect performance, but I'd bet it won't hurt anything.

[Descenterace]

With FAT32, partitioning will improve performance. With NTFS, I'm not so sure it matters. It will certainly never reduce performance.

[Prophet]

Its generally okay for the drive to be loose. But if it indeed is loose, you would do well to secure the computer as a whole. Don't go kicking it around. Drives can spin pretty fast, and if the drive drops or hits something... Well the word "crash" would be fitting...

And obviously, if the drive has some exposed circuitry (the other side often has), don't let it touch anything metal.

[jr2]

Um, some drives have 6 holes for screws, and you only use four; the front 2 and the middle 2 or the middle 2 and the back 2.  See if you can slide it forwards / backwards until it fits.  NTFS partitions FTW (unless compared with ext3, I guess... but Windows can't read those).

[Fury]

NTFS partitions FTW (unless compared with ext3, I guess... but Windows can't read those).

Yes it can. There are at least two ext2/3 drivers for Windows. Ext3 is poor compared to JFS though. It's a shame that JFS is likely to be marked as deprecated in future kernels however, probably because of lack of active maintainer. I wonder if XFS faces the same ending later. ZFS would be great but its choice of license is incompatible with GPL. That may change though since Sun is considering releasing OpenSolaris under GPL3, which probably would also mean that ZFS license would be also changed to GPL3.

But this is going off-topic now so I'll shut up.

[diceman111]

Yeah you should be ok if its in really tight just keep an eye on it as Prophet said , and you might want to open the case after a little time and make sure it still is stuck in pretty tight

[jr2]

NTFS partitions FTW (unless compared with ext3, I guess... but Windows can't read those).

Yes it can. There are at least two ext2/3 drivers for Windows. Ext3 is poor compared to JFS though. It's a shame that JFS is likely to be marked as deprecated in future kernels however, probably because of lack of active maintainer. I wonder if XFS faces the same ending later. ZFS would be great but its choice of license is incompatible with GPL. That may change though since Sun is considering releasing OpenSolaris under GPL3, which probably would also mean that ZFS license would be also changed to GPL3.

But this is going off-topic now so I'll shut up.

IIRC, ext3 is only available in ext2 mode under Windows.  In other words, with no journaling enabled.  So there goes the crash protection, you basically have an ext2 drive when running an ext3 drive under a Windows ext2 IFS / file manager.  If you know of an IFS or file manager that supports the journaling, please let me know so I can use it.    Thx.

[G0atmaster]

I would screw it in if you can at all.  If the 3.5 inch bays are open at the bottom, try to bend them out just a tad to make it fit.  If you can't, then whatever, but if you can, do it.  Harddrives vibrate when they're spinning, and that could cause it to shake loose and fall, which could break the drive (basically what Prophet said).  ANother thing to remember, if it's one of the drives that can take both the SATA-specific power plug AND the older types of plug, ONLY USE ONE TYPE!!! DO NOT PLUG THE DRIVE IN TO TWO POWER PLUGS AT ONCE!!!  Otherwise, it's pretty much plug in, boot to windows, and format.   Format it NTFS on one partition.  The only Partition/performance relation I ever heard about was installing Windows on a partition about 6-10 gigs large for Virtual Memory, and putting all your other files on another drive.  But if you've got a 500gig drive, that shouldn't be an issue.

Any problems, I'm your guy.  Do you know how to partition/format a drive while in Windows?

[brozozo]

I would screw it in if you can at all.  If the 3.5 inch bays are open at the bottom, try to bend them out just a tad to make it fit.  If you can't, then whatever, but if you can, do it.  Harddrives vibrate when they're spinning, and that could cause it to shake loose and fall, which could break the drive (basically what Prophet said).  ANother thing to remember, if it's one of the drives that can take both the SATA-specific power plug AND the older types of plug, ONLY USE ONE TYPE!!! DO NOT PLUG THE DRIVE IN TO TWO POWER PLUGS AT ONCE!!!  Otherwise, it's pretty much plug in, boot to windows, and format.   Format it NTFS on one partition.  The only Partition/performance relation I ever heard about was installing Windows on a partition about 6-10 gigs large for Virtual Memory, and putting all your other files on another drive.  But if you've got a 500gig drive, that shouldn't be an issue.

Any problems, I'm your guy.  Do you know how to partition/format a drive while in Windows?

I'm not that big of a noob. I know exactly how to install a hard drive, but I've never actually done it with a new, fresh drive. Hence, my nervousness and lots of questions. Oddly enough, I don't know how to partition and format a drive in Windows. I was looking around for that utility last night, but I couldn't find it. Although, I do have a CD from Maxtor that can do all the same dirty work.

Prophet and jr2, thanks for the suggestions. I'll make sure there's no metal-circuitry contact, and I'll fiddle around with it a bit more.

[IceFire]

Thanks a lot, guys. I've been sweating about this a lot. I don't want to **** up somehow and ruin my drives.

What about the initial boot up? Do I need to mess around with some settings in BIOS?

Hard to **** things up these days...SATA is ridiculously easy.  There is no primary/secondary master/slave relationship anymore.  Each drive is its own channel and everything is configured by the system on the fly so there is really very little you can do.  I usually go into the BIOS on start up and just make sure the new drive is listed but thats about it.  Just don't shock it, pass a large magnet over it, drop it, or otherwise do something stupid (fire, water, baseball bat, etc.).

I would definitely make sure, however, that its screwed in and secured properly.  It may seem wedged in tight with the case but its still free to vibrate loose and thats not going to be good for the drive.  Drives vibrate a fair bit when in operation so its not good.  Some cases also come with elastic suspension which is fine too...the drive is secured and benefits from not shaking the rest of the case as the elastic is tight but absorbs the vibration.

[jr2]

Oddly enough, I don't know how to partition and format a drive in Windows.

Start -> Run, type diskmgmt.msc , press enter

(Try compmgmt.msc , it's a list of some more tools like diskmgmt.msc... I personally right-click my Taskbar, hit Properties, hit the "Start Menu" tab, hit "Customize", hit the "Advanced" tab, scroll down the "Start menu items", and enable "System Administrative Tools" to "Display on All Programs menu and the Start menu".  This gives you a few nifty little tools to play with, including compmgmt, which in turn allows you to launch diskmgmt.  .msc files are launched using mmc.exe (Start - Run mmc Enter to open mmc without a snap-in tool activated).

[Fury]

Or you could just open control panel > administrative tools > computer management > disk management.

[G0atmaster]

I rightclick on my computer and click on management.  Then I go to disk management from there

[jr2]

Or you could just open control panel > administrative tools > computer management > disk management.

  Yeah, that too.