Hard Disk - Tips you need to Know
Hard Drive is like your Stomach, you store everything in there like your work, mp2's,OS etc.So, it is important to know a bit about your storage.
Your hard drive, or also called hard disk, is a gigantic diskette in your computer. It is one disk big enough to store you Operating System, games and programs. Without it, your PC is just an empty shell.
CHECK BIOS UPDATE
Better beware of older systems with large hard drives. If you have an older motherboard, your BIOS might not recognize hard drives larger than 2.1 GB. Hopefully, your BIOS is EPROM which means although read only (noticed the ROM?) it can be edited by authorized editors. Nearly all newer motherboards support that. All you need to do is to go online, go to your motherboard manufacturer's website and try to download a flash BIOS update. Install it and it should be done.
FAT32,NTFS?
If you have a large capacity hard drive with more than 2.1 GB, you might have a problem. Older Windows version(95) will only recognize a partition with not more than 2.1 GB. You need FAT32. With FAT32, you can have one large capacity hard drive without partitioning. You will also save some space with FAT32. In short, larger hard drives require FAT32.
But it is recommended to change it to NTFS if your operating system is XP.
Divide Your HDD(Partitioning)- Security Reason
Although you can have one big fat hard drive as one partition, you should consider partitioning as well, if you have a big hare drive. Partitioning is the method of dividing an area on a disk into smaller portions of lesser capacities that can be recognized by the operating system. Picture this: your hard drive is a cake. It is easier to eat a cake divided into pieces than to eat it whole.
Partitioning enables you to achieve greater efficiency and functionality from high-capacity disks (2.1GB or greater).Currently there are a lot of software you can use to create Partition like Partition Magic. This is what my partition looks like:-
1st Partition - Windows OS
2nd Partition- mp3's & movie, anime, video clips
3rd Partition - my work, notes, document
4th Partition - backup files.
#If your PC encounter serious problem and have to be formatted, by partitioning HDD you only need to format the partition that contain your OS(in this case 1st partition) only.So, your previous data/files still in the safe place.
Access or Seek time
If you want to buy a hard drive but are confused with the specifications of access time and seek time, remember that the key to the speed of a hard drive is the average access time. This is the time taken to access a single sector to the time when the drive's head reaches the sector. But beware, some ads quote seek time that is not the appropriate measurement. Access time is seek time plus latency (the time it takes for the chosen sector to come around to be positioned under the read/write head).
HDD Space
-For me, the bigger the better since you can put a lot of data into it.But make sure you manage it very well. Always do maintenance like Defragmenting at least once a month.
That's all information about HDD you have to know if you want to buy new HDD or do maintenance.
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