Upgrading Your Hard Drive

INTRODUCTION

Hard drive (HD) technology is evolving at a very rapid pace. At the same times, costs are dropping just as fast. Not long ago, it was common to pay over $1000.00 for a 10 megabyte (MB) HD. That’s $100.00 per MB.

Today’s hard drives are measured in gigabytes (GB) - A gigabyte is 1000 megabytes - and costs are down to pennies per MB. Today’s hard drives have to be bigger though. Long gone are the days when a word processing program fit on a floppy disk. A modern day office application like Microsoft Office 2000 can take well over 200MB on it’s own. Thankfully, hard drives are getting bigger all the time. Several companies are approaching or have broken the 50GB barrier for hard drive space, although the most common drives seem to be in the 13 – 20 GB range. Over 20GB and the prices begin to rise sharply although, again, this can change in a matter of months.

WHY UPGRADE

Upgrading a hard drive is one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to lengthen the life of your present computer, and possibly even speed it up. For more information on this, see "How A Hard Drive Works." With only a few hundred dollars, it is possible to increase your storage space 400, 500, even 1000%!

WHAT ABOUT MY DATA?

It is possible to transfer the entire contents of your old hard drive to the new hard drive. All it takes is installing the new drive into your computer along with the old drive, and a program like Norton Ghost or Western Digital’s EZdrive to transfer the data. It is not as simple as just copying everything over. There are many special files your hard drive uses to keep track of all its data, and transferring everything over does not guarantee that your new hard drive will even boot up. You should use an imaging program. Virtually every hard drive manufacturer today will supply such a program and direction on how to transfer your data.

A WORD OF WARNING!!!

Hard drives are sensitive electrical instruments. A sharp jolt such as a drop, or even the tiniest electric shock from your finger to the wrong part of your drive can destroy it and all the data written on it. You must take proper precautions to prevent electrostatic discharge (ESD) - See "Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) and How To Prevent It" for more information – and handle your drive with care. You have been warned!

CAN COMUTERHELP USA DO THIS FOR ME?

Yes! ComuterHelp USA has installed and new drives and safely transferred data countless times. Depending on the size of your old drive, it can cost as little at $50.00 to install the new drive and set it up. Easy for you, and guaranteed by us! Just give us a call.

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