Installing a second hard drive?

[John]

I've been thinking about installing a second hard drive to store music on.
Is installing a second hard drive difficult to do? Also, where are some
online places to get hard drives really cheap? Since this will be the slave
drive, I don't care how fast it is. I'm looking for cheap prices on 20 gigs
to 40 gig hard drives.

Its rreally easy but it depends on who is doing it. If you dont know
how to use a screw driver and have never taken the case off of a
computer it might be hard but in general - anyone can do it fairly
easily .

The weird thing about PC stuff is prices wildly vary. In some ways if
you just look for anything particular it may be hard to get a decent
price at any point in time and really easy at another time. It depends
on finding the right rebate sale. So you can literally see 40 meg HDs
for $80 and the next week $20 after rebate and then 60-80 the next
week at various spots. This distorts preceptions of pricing with some
thinking stuff is expensive and other idiots always telling you "I can
get that for $5 new ! " Sure go ahead. You have to get it onsale and
sometimes that can take some hustling (going to the store early , or
jumping on online sales) and going through the hassle of a rebate in
which you pay far more upfront. Sure I can with a lot of hassle get
lots of stuff super cheap but that doesnt mean anyones going to sell
anything at anytime for $10 . If anyone expects people to sell things
at lower than net rebate price - uh sell me something at that price.
They can go stand in line, or stay up and track down online sales and
then pay $120 for 40 after rebate item , taking on the risk and hassle
and then sell it to me for $30.

That said its definitely worth it to wait for a rebate sale and try
going for one.

160 gig and 200 gig rebate sales on Seagate hard drives were going on
at Compusa , Outpost.com for $49-59 after rebate. Thats dirt cheap.
You have to jump on the really good deals though. Sometimes there will
be similar deals in row like that and you get jaded then suddenly no
deals for a while. You just never know. It was fairly pathetic over
the summer but actually this is the best time after back to school
(fake) sales taper off and the real sales start heading into the
Halloween/Thanksgiving/Xmas season. Ive already seen an amazing
turnaround in sales just the last month - stuff I havent seen for the
last 6 months or longer in my region.

http://shop4.outpost.com/product/4008242
..
Just ask online here for the exact procedure , its easy. They also
come with instructions in the box and since its a second HD and you
arent reinstalling everything on it - its makes that much easier.

 

[Michael]

I've been thinking about installing a second hard drive to store music on.
Is installing a second hard drive difficult to do? Also, where are some
online places to get hard drives really cheap? Since this will be the slave
drive, I don't care how fast it is. I'm looking for cheap prices on 20 gigs
to 40 gig hard drives.

 

[Jan Alter]

used and new stuff. Most of it has been OK for me. Very cheap used hard
drives.
http://www.computersurplusoutlet.com/

Never tried these folks
http://www.pcliquidator.com/

Outstanding No better source on the continent.
www.newegg.com

 

[Panos Popadopalous]

I've been thinking about installing a second hard drive to store music on.
Is installing a second hard drive difficult to do? Also, where are some
online places to get hard drives really cheap? Since this will be the
slave
drive, I don't care how fast it is. I'm looking for cheap prices on 20
gigs
to 40 gig hard drives.

A 20 to 40gig hard drive is too small to store a LOT of music files.

BUT before buying a 120 to 160gig HD make sure your motherboard BIOS can
handle those larger sizes.

 

[mentalalien]

I've been thinking about installing a second hard drive to store music on.
Is installing a second hard drive difficult to do? Also, where are some
online places to get hard drives really cheap? Since this will be the
slave
drive, I don't care how fast it is. I'm looking for cheap prices on 20
gigs
to 40 gig hard drives.

It may be worth considering a music player such as an Ipod with a rather
large hard drive

 

[terry smith]

No pretty easy (I did it). Basically you just plug it onto the
same cable as your existing drive, with the jumper set to 'slave'
and away you go.
Mine is not even fixed to anything, it just lies in side the box.
You will find web links if you need help.

A 20 to 40gig hard drive is too small to store a LOT of music files.

Yes but quite a few, you get 200 mp3's to the giga byte so thats 4000 or
8000 tracks, or 800 CDS? (work out how long it would take you play
8000 tracks, X 5 mins ( about a month 24/7 )).

 

[patrick]

No pretty easy (I did it). Basically you just plug it onto the
same cable as your existing drive, with the jumper set to 'slave'
and away you go.
Mine is not even fixed to anything, it just lies in side the box.
You will find web links if you need help.




Yes but quite a few, you get 200 mp3's to the giga byte so thats 4000 or
8000 tracks, or 800 CDS? (work out how long it would take you play
8000 tracks, X 5 mins ( about a month 24/7 )).

Costco has the Maxtor 250Gb drive, with the Promise ATA controller card,
for $149.00!