Sata Hdd

[boofhead]

Been awhile since I built my family's computers, and want to put a bigger hard drive in two of them. All I can find on line are SATA drives, which have different connections for the mb and the power. Is there a source for cheap IED hard drives, or is there a converter cable, or can it be plugged into a USB connection?
I run XP.
Questions, questions...

[Bushfiva]

Yes, yes, and yes. All things are still possible. There are still plenty of PATA drives out there. SATA drive cards are cheap. Converter cables are plentiful.

[spannersatcx]

Be careful with IED's they can explode!:eek:

[NutLoose]

I actually went the other way and bought a MyBook, cracking bit of kit, sits by the PC and I fill it with all my pics etc, plugs into the USB 2 though I used it on USB one, but its a bit slow on pic transfer that way. It is recognised as another hard drive, great thing is if you ever need to move files from one PC to another, simply unplug, take it across and plug it in :)

Home edition is sata, the price shown is the huge expensive one, check the other drive sizes for lower prices or the likes of Amazon or Ebay...oh and you can daisy chain them too......... mines about 6 inches by 6 inches by 2 inches in size and looks cool.. powers up with C and shuts down with it too....... you could put operating system on a small HD I suppose then all your programmes on one of these,

see

http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=357

http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/index.asp?cat=8

Or you could get a hot swappable HD housing which plugs into the pc case like a DVD drive, you then plug a HD into that, thought about this next, have a drive with games on and basic windows, one with finances and one with work etc, then simply plug and play........ no worry about being online and your finances being vunerable etc, just swop drives out...........

[El Grifo]

Here is a bit of kit worth considering. I have one winging its way as we type.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=221814&source=1&DOY=14m6

Or another tack.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?criteria=hard%20drive%20docking%20station&source=15&menu=-3&WorldSearch=Y&SD=Y

[dbdarrington]

http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Components/cat/Hard-Drives?refmen=tn
Have a look here for internal and external hard disk drives; I find this site and www.lambdatek.com (http://www.lambdatek.com) is quite reliable and much cheaper than somewhere like maplins! If your computer is getting old and only has PATA interface, you can always ebay PATA to SATA interfaces which are v. cheap! Good luck!

[Saab Dastard]

I agree with both the above - ebuyer and especially lambdatek. I recently bought a 19" LCD display from lambdatek, and not only were they the cheapest for the screen, but they were cheapest for delivery AND it arrived next working day!

SD

[El Grifo]

dbdarrington

Slightly more expensive though for the item I have just referred to and since received.

Maplin http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=221814&source=1&DOY=14m6

Lambdatek http://www.lambda-tek.com/componentshop/index.pl?prodID=B93951

Pays to shop around :ok:

[BigEndBob]

Can recommend this
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/123400

No fans, makes no noise and fast transfers.

Has Samsung HDD, which apparently one of the best.

Easily stacked ontop of each other, not stood upright so that it can keep getting knocked over.

[boofhead]

I did get a 500Gb IEDE harddrive and it went in easy. I used the DISCXX program and it worked like a charm moving all the data and settings across. It amazed me, it was so easy.