Is a hard drive upgrade in order?

14 years ago

Our 5-6 yr old Dell 2400 (sounds old, but works well) has an 80gb harddrive that's down to less than 15% free space remaining on it so I can no longer defrag. (Has XP home, RAM maxed out at 2Mb, with a P3 equivalent chip or similar)

I suppose I could 1) do some serious house-cleaning to free up enough space, or 2) figure out how to upgrade a harddrive (there's no extra slot for it, so I'd have to do it a bit more indirectly, or 3) use this as an excuse to buy yet another primary computer. Thoughts?

Comments (8)

exgm
14 years ago
I'd start with housecleaning, particularly temp files, unnecessary files and system restore points to see just how much could be freed up. Also, what existing data could you transfer to another media?
bpgreen
14 years ago
You could get an external drive and create an image of the current drive, then install a new drive and restore from the image.

If that intimidates you, you can just get an external drive and store things you don't use all the time on the external drive (not programs because they take too long to load when on an external device and some won't load that way).
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ravencajun Zone 8b TX
14 years ago
the thing I am worried about is the fact you said it Sounds old if this sound is coming from the tower it could well be coming from the hard drive and if a hard drive is making sounds it did not make when new it can be an indicator of a drive that is on it's way to failing.
I would try running some of the programs that test the health of your hard drive and see what you get.
I am sure you did not mean 2Mb of Ram perhaps 2 Gig?
Hard drives are not terribly expensive and they are pretty easy to install, just depends really on what you want to put into an older machine. It would be an excellent candidate to load linux on and learn a new OS.
But first you need to learn of the health of that drive and definitely do housekeeping on it no matter what you do.
When was the last time you opened that case and cleaned out the dust bunnies? Dust bunnies can often be the reason things fail due to the heat caused and them getting stuck in fans which makes new noises too.
Cleaning the computer and its components
belarc has a hard drive health test
Belarc
HD Tune
look for the free version not the pro
mike_kaiser_gw
14 years ago
Replacing the hard drive is certainly an option. I just did a quick look an a 160G EIDE drive was $60 in a retail package which means it will come with mounting hardware, cable, and software/instructions to transfer the data from the old drive to the new. Replacing a drive isn't especially hard but it does take some basic understanding of how hardware works and making connections. You don't need to permanently mount the new drive to make the transfer, you just need to be careful any exposed electronics doesn't touch the metal computer chassis

If you do switch drive you may want to run disc clean-up first and get rid of those unnecessary files so you don't waste time moving them.
homebound
Original Author
14 years ago
Thanks everyone - I think you've encouraged me to replace the HD in the near future....after a bit of clean-up, of course.

BTW, raviencajun, I just meant that 6-7 years is old in computer dog years - it's actually quiet and normal. Yup, it's had the case cleaned out "a couple times", too (by me).
ravencajun Zone 8b TX
14 years ago
ahhh ok got ya I read it as it sounds old as in making the sounds us old folks make LOL I know those sounds too well!

I recently added a second hard drive to one of mine so that I have my windows on one drive and my linux on the other in the same box, was a breeze to install the drive itself.

There are several free drive imaging programs around now too so should you decide to do that, image the drive and put on a new drive just ask and we can give you some links.
mikie_gw
14 years ago
What was the popular drive size bios limitations 5 or 6 years ago ? May have to partition up a new larger drive.
kudzu9
14 years ago
I have a 9 year old Dell as one of my computers and it also has an 80 GB hard drive. I've managed to keep the free space to over 60% by practicing a little basic housekeeping now and then. I think you can get several more years of service out of that computer very easily.

I suspect you have: a) a lot of old programs taking up space that you never use, and b) a ton of pictures and other old files that should have been archived in a backup long ago. To keep it simple, my suggestion is to clean the crap off that hard drive, and then go buy yourself an external hard drive that connects by USB. I just bought a 320GB Toshiba for $67 which comes with backup software installed and requires no skills to get working. Heck, you could even backup everything you have jammed onto that old external hard drive before you delete the crap if you're nervous about losing anything. And, when/if that old hard drive ever fails, you can install a new internal drive and restore everything back to it from the external drive.

Here is a link that might be useful: Toshiba external hard drive

Is a hard drive upgrade in order?

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exgm

bpgreen

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Is a hard drive upgrade in order?

Comments (8)

exgm

bpgreen

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