Omega Owners Forum

Chat Area => General Discussion Area => Topic started by: HerefordElite on 13 August 2008, 23:19:06

Title: PC Advice
Post by: HerefordElite on 13 August 2008, 23:19:06
I have an old K7S5A Motherboard in my PC and i can't afford to upgrade at the moment but i'm running out of HD space.

Do you think it's worth me buying a bigger HD looking at http://www.lambda-tek.com/componentshop/index.pl?prodID=1404266 which is about the best my MB will support (max ATA-100) or are newer SATA-300 etc that much better and should i wait til i retire my aging MB? :'(
Title: Re: PC Advice
Post by: Mr Skrunts on 13 August 2008, 23:22:24
Go external via a USB 2 caddy, add a 500GB hard drive, then when you do upgrade you can allways add the 500GB as a slave on your upgrade. :y :y
Title: Re: PC Advice
Post by: Mr Skrunts on 13 August 2008, 23:24:55
http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/Other+products/200Gb+Hitachi+Travelstar+SATA+Laptop+Drive+5400+rpm+?productId=32090

http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/Other+products/750+GB+Maxtor+DiamondMax22+32MB+?productId=32235

Caddys

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Drive+Bays/?x=12&p_order=price_asc&p=cF9vcmRlcj1wcmljZV9kZXNjJnBfc3R5bGU9bGlzdCZwX3Byb2R1Y3RzUGVyUGFnZT0m


Drives.

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Hard+Drives/
Title: Re: PC Advice
Post by: HerefordElite on 13 August 2008, 23:34:25
Quote
Go external via a USB 2 caddy, add a 500GB hard drive, then when you do upgrade you can allways add the 500GB as a slave on your upgrade. :y :y


Excuse my ignorance Phil but  :-?? how would i add the external as slave?  

Don't really want an external :-/

but thanks anyway :y
Title: Re: PC Advice
Post by: Mr Skrunts on 13 August 2008, 23:35:24
Via the USB2 socket, add it and format it as annother drive letter, or partition it and add multiple drive letters.

Just thought it might work out cheaper in the long run, most of the drives are cheap ungough, but if you buy a Sata drive, then you will need a sata/PCI card arrond £15

With a caddy, from a tenner, you can plug the drive into and PC/Laptop with a USB port.  :y
Title: Re: PC Advice
Post by: Mr Skrunts on 13 August 2008, 23:42:08
Also you can buy a bigger drive, and if I am correct just partition the ammount your board eill support, allthough unXP it will probably use the whole ammont. but maybe only when partitioned.
Title: Re: PC Advice
Post by: bappy on 14 August 2008, 12:34:42
I beleive that running over USB there wont be an issue on drive size. you could in theory have a 100 TB disk on a usb port (i know they dont exist yet)

You need to make sure your operating system can support a large HD tho. if you're on XP make sure you install the latest service pack and you'll be fine with an external 500GB disk, vista will cope fine too. if you are on '98 or me forget it. don't know how well 2000 deals with big disks either.

as for using it as a slave, what skruntie is suggesting is that when you have finally bought a new mother board you can take your 500GB disk out of the caddy and put it in the PC as a regular internal disk.

K7S5A you say? I had one of those. Don't buy a caddy with a GS18** controller chip as they are incompatible with VIA usb controllers. If in doubt either buy a belkin USB2 card or get a firewire caddy instead of USB2.

Trust me, I'm an IT analyst :D
Title: Re: PC Advice
Post by: Ken T on 14 August 2008, 13:03:55
another supplier of HD's at a reasonable price is CCL  

http://www.cclonline.com/product-categories.asp?category_id=112

Fancy a TerraByte for £90 ?

Ken
Title: Re: PC Advice
Post by: HerefordElite on 14 August 2008, 13:11:14
Running XP (latest service Pack)

was keen to stick with WD as the 40GB i got now is superb and been going strong for years (touch wood) :y
Title: Re: PC Advice
Post by: Mr Skrunts on 14 August 2008, 19:05:30
Quote
Running XP (latest service Pack)

was keen to stick with WD as the 40GB i got now is superb and been going strong for years (touch wood) :y

I still have some of the motherboards you have as your PC upstairs, cracking board, built loads of systems based on them,

40gb these days doesnt take much filling.  But like you say an extra drive will free up some space. :y
Title: Re: PC Advice
Post by: HerefordElite on 14 August 2008, 20:12:55
Quote
Quote
Running XP (latest service Pack)

was keen to stick with WD as the 40GB i got now is superb and been going strong for years (touch wood) :y

I still have some of the motherboards you have as your PC upstairs, cracking board, built loads of systems based on them,

40gb these days doesnt take much filling.  But like you say an extra drive will free up some space. :y

very old now but still a great board, learnt a bit buliding and upgrading on this one ::)

sure it's probably on The Boys gay list though i know my Athlon XP chip is ;D

Funny thing is fat old blokes on Wii's are on my gay list :D

(bye bye post count :P)
Title: Re: PC Advice
Post by: Mr Skrunts on 14 August 2008, 20:14:57
Quote
Quote
Quote
Running XP (latest service Pack)

was keen to stick with WD as the 40GB i got now is superb and been going strong for years (touch wood) :y

I still have some of the motherboards you have as your PC upstairs, cracking board, built loads of systems based on them,

40gb these days doesnt take much filling.  But like you say an extra drive will free up some space. :y

very old now but still a great board, learnt a bit buliding and upgrading on this one ::)

sure it's probably on The Boys gay list though i know my Athlon XP chip is ;D

Funny thing is fat old blokes on Wii's are on my gay list :D

(bye bye post count :P)



Oh dear . . .  :-/
Title: Re: PC Advice
Post by: TheBoy on 14 August 2008, 20:20:25
Not worth spending too much on it.  Actually, I can't even give away Athlon XP machines.

Due to its age, probably lacking memory (256? 512?) and at end of its life anyway.  A low spec (but still far better than you have) base unit will be dirt cheap anyway.

I know you dont want to buy a new one at the moment, but don't spend much on yours.  If its purely disk capacity, can you burn stuff off on to DVD to free up space, or even just reformat (that frees up loads ;)) until you are in a position to upgrade?
Title: Re: PC Advice
Post by: HerefordElite on 14 August 2008, 21:27:16
It's got about as far as it can:

AXMA3000FKT4C Mobile Athlon Barton XP, Overclocked (slightly) to 2418MHz Fastest available XP chip supported by my board (266FSB)

1GB 266-DDR (max for board)

ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB

DVDrw

CDrw

Netgear Wireless PCI adaptor

she's not a bad old girl and been steadily upgraded over the years (and taught me a lot) but board is hloding back now and so is my empty wallet ;)
Title: Re: PC Advice
Post by: TheBoy on 14 August 2008, 21:29:56
Quote
It's got about as far as it can:

AXMA3000FKT4C Mobile Athlon Barton XP, Overclocked (slightly) to 2418MHz Fastest available XP chip supported by my board (266FSB)

1GB 266-DDR (max for board)

ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB

DVDrw

CDrw

Netgear Wireless PCI adaptor

she's not a bad old girl and been steadily upgraded over the years (and taught me a lot) but board is hloding back now and so is my empty wallet ;)
Trouble is, its all ol technology, so the next step means something more drastic....
Title: Re: PC Advice
Post by: HerefordElite on 14 August 2008, 21:41:07
Quote
Quote
It's got about as far as it can:

AXMA3000FKT4C Mobile Athlon Barton XP, Overclocked (slightly) to 2418MHz Fastest available XP chip supported by my board (266FSB)

1GB 266-DDR (max for board)

ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB

DVDrw

CDrw

Netgear Wireless PCI adaptor

she's not a bad old girl and been steadily upgraded over the years (and taught me a lot) but board is hloding back now and so is my empty wallet ;)
Trouble is, its all ol technology, so the next step means something more drastic....

very drastic as all the components are uselees for modern kit, i'll have to wait and see what santa brings me :y