help on decision about upgrading harddisk

[kfman]

Hi all,

I need your help on my decision making process.

My C harddrive constantly ran low these days... It was terrible. I often see
ZERO capacity remaining on my C drive.

So I've decided to upgrade it to a large harddisk. I purchased a 300GB
seagate harddisk. But I've just realized not all motherboard supports such a
large harddisk. I am using Windows XP on a Dell Poweredge 400SC server. Does
my motherboard support the 300GB harddisk?

If it supports the harddisk, I now face two options:

1. I can reinstall new system on the 300GB harddisk. And then reinstall
every software to that 300GB harddisk. And copy the data and documents to
that harddisk. Thus I have a new system.

2. I can GHOST copy all the partitions to the new harddisk, literally all
the same, except I will make C drive a lot larger, I origianlly had 11GB on
C drive, I plan to do a 50GB so I will never have to worry about C drive
capacity. God knows that's how painful for me in the past a few days! In
this way, I kept all system/softwares and I have no need to reinstall system
and softwares. Finding those softwares out and reinstall them one by one,
and then reinstall the drivers, updates, patches is definitely painful. The
only drawback is that after running the system for 1.5 years, the system got
extremely slow with a lot junkware inside. As you know many software do not
clean themself well even after you uninstall them. It's easier to get in,
but harder to let them out. I am sure the system is just too bulky.

Which options do you think it's the best option for me? I need your
opinions... Thanks a lot!

(I also have a laptop Toshiba Tablet PC M4, which has the same problem of C
drive running low. I am thinking of doing the same upgrade thing on that M4
laptop; but I guess there is no 300GB harddisk for laptop, so I don't gain
much -- I've already having a 60GB harddisk, if I buy a 100GB one, it does
not give me too much improvement. I will have to worry about capacity very
soon again. Perhaps for laptop, I should just buy a mobile harddisk,
removable harddisk, and constantly back out some data/documents, etc. to
make room on the 60GB harddisk... )

Thanks a lot

 

[Uncle Grumpy]

Which options do you think it's the best option for me? I need your
opinions... Thanks a lot!

Use GHOST to clone the old drive to the new one.

No need to reinstall software or anything.

 

[Phil Weldon]

'kfman'| So I've decided to upgrade it to a large harddisk. I purchased a
300GB
| seagate harddisk. But I've just realized not all motherboard supports such
a
| large harddisk. I am using Windows XP on a Dell Poweredge 400SC server.
Does
| my motherboard support the 300GB harddisk?
_____

* Use the ENTIRE capacity of the new 300 GByte hard drive as your new NTFS
C: drive. There is no advantage in partitioning the drive unless you use an
additional file system and/or operating system.

* There is a very practical way of discovering if your motherboard
recognizes the full capacity of the new drive (300 GBytes is the DECIMAL
capacity of the hard drive, the BINARY capacity that the BIOS reports is
less, more like 279.46 GBytes). Power off the system and install the new
drive in the system case and attach a free IDE connector and power
connector. Boot up the system and check the capacity of the new drive in
the BIOS. If it recognizes 279.46 GBytes, then there you are. If it does
not, then among the choices are
(a.) check with Dell customer support - that's what it is for
(b.) most retail hard drives come with software that allows the full
capacity of the hard drive to be used
(c.) check for a BIOS update.

Finally, try to avoid crossposting to so many newsgroups.

Phil Weldon



| Hi all,
|
| I need your help on my decision making process.
|
| My C harddrive constantly ran low these days... It was terrible. I often
see
| ZERO capacity remaining on my C drive.
|
| So I've decided to upgrade it to a large harddisk. I purchased a 300GB
| seagate harddisk. But I've just realized not all motherboard supports such
a
| large harddisk. I am using Windows XP on a Dell Poweredge 400SC server.
Does
| my motherboard support the 300GB harddisk?
|
| If it supports the harddisk, I now face two options:
|
| 1. I can reinstall new system on the 300GB harddisk. And then reinstall
| every software to that 300GB harddisk. And copy the data and documents to
| that harddisk. Thus I have a new system.
|
| 2. I can GHOST copy all the partitions to the new harddisk, literally all
| the same, except I will make C drive a lot larger, I origianlly had 11GB
on
| C drive, I plan to do a 50GB so I will never have to worry about C drive
| capacity. God knows that's how painful for me in the past a few days! In
| this way, I kept all system/softwares and I have no need to reinstall
system
| and softwares. Finding those softwares out and reinstall them one by one,
| and then reinstall the drivers, updates, patches is definitely painful.
The
| only drawback is that after running the system for 1.5 years, the system
got
| extremely slow with a lot junkware inside. As you know many software do
not
| clean themself well even after you uninstall them. It's easier to get in,
| but harder to let them out. I am sure the system is just too bulky.
|
| Which options do you think it's the best option for me? I need your
| opinions... Thanks a lot!
|
| (I also have a laptop Toshiba Tablet PC M4, which has the same problem of
C
| drive running low. I am thinking of doing the same upgrade thing on that
M4
| laptop; but I guess there is no 300GB harddisk for laptop, so I don't gain
| much -- I've already having a 60GB harddisk, if I buy a 100GB one, it does
| not give me too much improvement. I will have to worry about capacity very
| soon again. Perhaps for laptop, I should just buy a mobile harddisk,
| removable harddisk, and constantly back out some data/documents, etc. to
| make room on the 60GB harddisk... )
|
| Thanks a lot
|
|

 

[Guest]

* Use the ENTIRE capacity of the new 300 GByte hard drive as your new
NTFS drive. There is no advantage in partitioning the drive unless you use an
additional file system and/or operating system.

Phil, I cringe whenever I see a server set-up like this. Basically, if one
day it won't boot, I _really_ don't want to be the guy who has to deal with
it. If you call me out, I shall probably be fishing. <g>

Any partition-image of the OS would have to include the data, and would thus
be, let's say, 100 DVD's worth instead of one. OK, so imaging is a
nonstarter, therefore we have to rely solely on tape backups.. But wait a
minute, no reinstall could be done without overwriting the data, at a time
when the backup system is inoperable so any existing tape-backups cannot be
verified. The tapes just might be useless, in which case we've just wiped the
ENTIRE data for nothing... Thus, the very attempt to repair the server will
involve a risk of total data loss.

Even worse when this kind of setup is put onto a disk-spanned or RAID
subsystem, since in that case you don't even have the option of rebuilding
the server onto a new HD instead of deleting the data.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Phil, I cringe whenever I see a server set-up like this. Basically,
if one day it won't boot, I _really_ don't want to be the guy who has
to deal with it. If you call me out, I shall probably be fishing. <g>

Any partition-image of the OS would have to include the data, and
would thus be, let's say, 100 DVD's worth instead of one. OK, so
imaging is a nonstarter, therefore we have to rely solely on tape
backups..

Tape backups are *not* the only alternative to DVDs. An exteranl USB drive
works just fine, and is, in my view, much prerable to either DVDs or tapes.

 

[Phil Weldon]

'Ian' wrote, in part:
| Phil, I cringe whenever I see a server set-up like this. Basically, if one
| day it won't boot, I _really_ don't want to be the guy who has to deal
with
| it. If you call me out, I shall probably be fishing. <g>
_____

(a.) You are making the assumption that the original poster is using the
Dell PowerEdge as a server.
(b.) You are making the assumption that the original poster has a RAID
implemented.

Based on evidence from the original post, I don't think either assumption is
warranted.
Also, your backup scenarios seem odd; if the system WERE used as a server,
backup should not be a hostage and if it is NOT used as a server, then the
expense of large capacity tape storage is not cost effective compared to an
external hard drive or NAS.

Phil Weldon

|
| "Phil Weldon" wrote:
|
| > * Use the ENTIRE capacity of the new 300 GByte hard drive as your new
| > NTFS drive. There is no advantage in partitioning the drive unless you
use an
| > additional file system and/or operating system.
|
| Phil, I cringe whenever I see a server set-up like this. Basically, if one
| day it won't boot, I _really_ don't want to be the guy who has to deal
with
| it. If you call me out, I shall probably be fishing. <g>
|
| Any partition-image of the OS would have to include the data, and would
thus
| be, let's say, 100 DVD's worth instead of one. OK, so imaging is a
| nonstarter, therefore we have to rely solely on tape backups.. But wait a
| minute, no reinstall could be done without overwriting the data, at a time
| when the backup system is inoperable so any existing tape-backups cannot
be
| verified. The tapes just might be useless, in which case we've just wiped
the
| ENTIRE data for nothing... Thus, the very attempt to repair the server
will
| involve a risk of total data loss.
|
| Even worse when this kind of setup is put onto a disk-spanned or RAID
| subsystem, since in that case you don't even have the option of rebuilding
| the server onto a new HD instead of deleting the data.
|
|
|