Which Hard drive?

[riccol]

O.K. going to add a second hard drive. Being added to a computer I use only for recording.
Running XP
it is a 2.80 pentium, with a Gig of ram

I know to look for a 7200 speed drive and would like 32 cache

but LORDY the choices are endless!

Suggestions appreciated

[fmw]

Not really. Pretty much all desktop hard drives are now 7200 rpm. 5400rpm desktop drives are old inventory. There are only two brands you want to consider - Seagate and Western Digital for desktop computers. There are some other brands but these two are the largest and most reliable. You find the type of interface your mainboard supports and a drive size. There should only be one option - or at least one meaningful option for each brand. The good news is that hard drives are unbelievably cheap if you stay away from the larger sizes. 500GB is the sweet spot in terms of storage for the dollar. 750GB isn't too bad either.

[riccol]

How do i What main board I have .... and what hard drive is compatible.

[suprstar]

Pop open the case and take a look. See what kinda drive is in there now. Make sure there's a place to physically put another drive, some cases are put together like tetris and have NO extra room.

Alternatively you could say 'fuggit' and just go buy an external USB drive (or firewire if you have a port). Plug it in and go. Doesn't matter what kind of anything you have. Any hard drive on the market today will be fast enough to keep up with your tracking.

[fmw]

Well, any hard drive on the market will keep up with fairly simple or amateur recording. It is possible to outrun some drives if you are mixing 40 tracks with a good variety of VST's.

The easiest way to tell after you open up the case is to look at the cable that connects the hard drive to the mainboard. The newer SATA drives are serial and have a cable that has the shape of a lamp cord. The older IDE drives are parallel and they have a very wide, flat cable with lots of conductors. Very easy to tell the difference. Good luck.

[fmw]

A picture is worth 1000 words. The red cable on the left is SATA and the black cable on the right is IDE.