buing hard drive

Hi i am building my own computer a mid range model no gaming or downloading,films/music just surfing and genral computer stuff.iam stuck on what size hard drive to buy ,can someone please help.price around £30/40.
thanks

For what you want to do any size drive will probably work.  Actually, most of them are larger than you'll need so pick a brand name [Seagate, Western Digital, Samsung, etc.] and get it.

Alan <>< 

An 80GB HD would be more than adequate but you may find that the even the smallest drives on the market now are larger than 80GB.  160GB or higher is likely what you'll find on the market.  A lot a hard drive space goes unused these days but the price difference between one size drive and the next size up is often not more than a few $.

Thanks  Soybean /Ale52 thats a great help now i can move to step6.

just been on a site for hard drives please explain. this four segate h/d's
750gb-£53  300gb-£342  146gb£194  500gb £36. all gb how would i choose one.

[Moderator]

The 2 higher priced drives are probably SSD ( solid state ) drives and too expensive for your needs...

The 500G or 750G in your price range would both be sufficient for your needs...

a nice 500-750

[Moderator]

Who's feeding the Parrots again ? ?

Hi as you have guessed i am building my own computer(with your help hopefully).
these are the components i have chosen ,can you please have a look at them and tell me if they are compatable   thanks

moyherboard/gigabyte ga ma785 gm-ud2h am3.

processor amd athlon iix2 -250 am3.

case antec 300.

PSU OCZ Modxstream 500w.


PS thanks patio/computeruler

Hard drive Seagate barracuda sata11 500gb.

ivanoe uses UK quids in his price quotes, so he is clearly in Great Britain, so mentioning dollars is clearly pointless. Ivanoe, you might as well go for the biggest you can afford. A lot of people price up their build and buy a drive which is too small just to save a tenner. They are so cheap nowadays. If a 750 GB drive costs £53 and a 500 GB costs £36, I'd get the bigger one. 32% more squids for 50% more gigs, go for it IMHO. In fact look at the 1TB drives the saving is even more.

Thanks ST.good idea your right i do not want to scimp.your also right geographicly.
GB it is.

ivanoe uses UK quids in his price quotes, so he is clearly in Great Britain, so mentioning dollars is clearly pointless. Ivanoe, you might as well go for the biggest you can afford. A lot of people price up their build and buy a drive which is too small just to save a tenner. They are so cheap nowadays. If a 750 GB drive costs £53 and a 500 GB costs £36, I'd get the bigger one. 32% more squids for 50% more gigs, go for it IMHO. In fact look at the 1TB drives the saving is even more.

We're really getting into an overkill mentality here. 

Hi i am building my own computer a mid range model no gaming or downloading,films/music just surfing and genral computer stuff.iam stuck on what size hard drive to buy ,can someone please help.price around £30/40.
thanks

The computer that I consider my main system (Windows XP) and has been so for about 5 years now, only has an 80GB HD and it's slightly less than half full. This inlcudes some music and some photos, neither of which ivanoe intends to do.

Based on ivanoe's stated usage for this computer, he'll never come close to filling even an 80GB HD. 

I was thinking the same as ivanoe until I got broadband; I went from  80 GB storage to 250 GB after 1 year. Then I got a 320 GB external HDD. You don't want to fill a drive nearly full.

my 750GB is nearly 80% full...

I was thinking the same as ivanoe until I got broadband; I went from  80 GB storage to 250 GB after 1 year. Then I got a 320 GB external HDD. You don't want to fill a drive nearly full.

What does broadband have to do with it?  Obviously, you're downloading a huge of amount of something?  What is it?  Again, read ivanoe's stated usage.  There's nothing there to indicate he needs a huge HD, nothing at all.

my 750GB is nearly 80% full...

With what? 

files.

What does broadband have to do with it?  Obviously, you're downloading a huge of amount of something?  What is it?  Again, read ivanoe's stated usage.  There's nothing there to indicate he needs a huge HD, nothing at all.

Binaries from Usenet, copyright free of course! and also a large number of digital and scanned photographs and videos from my camcorder. Your digital needs grow as you get used to the digital lifestyle. I have a 20 GB Windows partition and I keep 3 backups on a rolling basis.

Doesn't defragging get slow if the drive is more than about 70% full?

... large number of digital and scanned photographs and videos from my camcorder.

Yes, that stuff gobbles up drive space fast.  So, if ivanoe thinks he might be delving heavily into those types of computer usage, then a larger hard drive makes sense.

Yes, that stuff gobbles up drive space fast.  So, if ivanoe thinks he might be delving heavily into those types of computer usage, then a larger hard drive makes sense.

And, if it is important to you, you back it up, so that's storage x 2, and since I don't like burning a whole stack of DVDs that means another drive.

My girlfriends brother died last year, and we lost a whole bunch of photos of him because an HDD failed.

Thanks once again to all of you for coming to my aid. but i think SOYBEAN is right .
i am only using this computer for genral use i don't think i'll be storing a lot of stuff on it .but as you all agree if the price is about the same i might as well go big.
i can buy 500gb for around $70/80 250gb $55/70.

anyway  thanks all.