External hard drive

[dave92cherokee]

Go with liquid cooling and then no worries about airflow space. But for yours it sounds like you've got room and ability so I'd put in at least a 120 gig drive anything smaller and it'll fill up on you again fast.

[l_eclipse_l]

Originally Posted by dave92cherokee

Go with liquid cooling and then no worries about airflow space.

I wouldn't suggest that to anyone except those who actually need it, and know what they are doing very comfortable as far as computer hardware goes. Recommending that to someone who has very limited experience is not a good idea. An extra fan would be the extent of his needs, if even that, if all he does is add a second hard drive. It dosn't sound like his feature-raped Dell has a lot of room to expand as far as video cards, etc. so he isn't making that much heat and won't for the extent of the life of that thing.

[doberman_52]

Yea, I really sont think the dell will generate enough heat either. Mine its part of where its located and the ventilation around the compiter too, I really wouldnt worrie about heat in that. if it runs at 70*, thats pretty low, mine probly used to run 80*+, and a friends was running just over 100*. Liquid cooling is for advanced users who know a fair amount and are comfertable with water running in their system.

[Knifeblade]

yeah, I don't think the install will create any heat issue, although I'm searching that possibility since ya'all alerted me to that. I haven't seen any power-drain problems once I dropped the video card in, the comp. is doing fine. I don't see any power-drain issue as yet, if I drop in a second internal HD, but then~~~~~~~~~ I am sort of pushing this system now, LOL.

And, if I understand Oz and you all, power-drain might become an issue, more so because of the heat generated by the second drive? So far, haven't had any hassles re power-drain, but then haven't put in a 2nd HD yet.

[doberman_52]

Im sure if needed you could get a decednt 500w power supply for around 40 to 50 bucks, but i havent looked in a while. The only upgrades are a 512mb of ram and a new video card right? If so, I don't think Id be to worried about the power supply, but thats me.

[l_eclipse_l]

You should be fine as far as power supply goes.

[ericn1300]

Originally Posted by l_eclipse_l

I wouldn't suggest that to anyone except those who actually need it, and know what they are doing very comfortable as far as computer hardware goes. Recommending that to someone who has very limited experience is not a good idea. An extra fan would be the extent of his needs, if even that, if all he does is add a second hard drive. It dosn't sound like his feature-raped Dell has a lot of room to expand as far as video cards, etc. so he isn't making that much heat and won't for the extent of the life of that thing.

LOL, as an old IBM Field Engineer I still remeber the old water cooled mainframes. When you have a problem, who you gonna call? the Engineers or the plumbers. Do like eclispe says and stay air cooled. If the manufactureres start to call for it it, liquid cooling will start with a sealed water jacket heat transfer that is self contained and air cooled.

[jtvyper456]

Newegg.com has a few 250GBs for around $70 right now, I personally like to use the smaller drive for running windows, and use the larger for installing games, holding music, backing up documents etc. Windows allocates what Microsoft calls a 'paging file', which is basically like virtual RAM, USUALLY on the drive that Windows is installed on, the more free space on the Windows drive, the better/faster windows will run. Installing the games and backing up music on the 250GB drive would allow you to reformat Windows without the risk of losing your game-data if something were ever to happen and you caught a virus that infected Windows. There are advantages/disadvantages of storing files both ways, personal prefrence is a key determining factor, but definantly get something larger than 80GB if you order one.

[jasonwoo]

I really like using external USB memory drives. Storage doesn't compare but its so handy to be able to carry around

[Knifeblade]

Hmm, didn't consider the portability aspect of an external drive. I can see that could be useful at some point. One more thing to consider, LOL. Thanks for pointing that out.