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Author Topic: Max. HDDs on 400W SMPS  (Read 2131 times)

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dud_pod

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    Max. HDDs on 400W SMPS
    « on: March 23, 2009, 03:45:53 AM »
    Hi experts,

    Computer Details

    Single SMPS - 400W
    HDD - 80 gig IDE (two), 250 gig SATA --- SATA has XP SP2
    DVD RW - SATA (Sony DL)
    Motherboard - Intel 945GCL

    Processor - Intel Core 2 Duo

    I have one IDE slot - taken up by the two 80 gig hard drives and 4 SATA slots, of which only 2 are in use, as mentioned.

    I want to add one more SATA HDD (500 gig or 1 TB to the system.) Can I do so? Is there any problem with the power? How much will each device take?

    If yes, any reason why I should go for 500 gig over 1TB? Stability related anything ?

    I know I can remove the 2 IDE devices and then power will not be a problem, but I am hoping for a solution whereby I can retain all devices as is.

    Thanks in advance.

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    Re: Max. HDDs on 400W SMPS
    « Reply #1 on: March 23, 2009, 08:18:45 AM »
    you should be fine.

    I'm only using a 250 Watt and I have maxed out the RAM, and it has a 500GB HD and two DVD burners.

    my old PC was only 250 watts as well and it had three Hard drives, a DVD burner, and the RAM was maxed out.

    however the old PC probably didn't have enough power as my third HD would randomly dissapear from the system.


    but 400Watts should more then cover your setup if you add an extra drive- depending of course on your graphics card power requirements (IE: what graphics card do you have)


    there are only a few reasons to go with a 500GB over a 1TB, aside from price, of course,one would be that if it fails you lose less data, the other BIOS compatibility issues.

    of course if you have a proper backup failure is merely inconvenient rather then a stab in the face, so it would be kind of silly to use a 500GB simply because you lose less data.

    And as far as BIOS compatibility any BIOS from a  P4 onwards, at least, likely can detect and use a 1TB drive.



    Additionally- if you install a 1TB drive, you can easily partition it to replace the two IDE drives letters with 80GB partitions- and then copy your data over, meaning you could remove the IDE drives. (why do you need them installed- do they contain OS's for a multi-boot setup?). This is what I did to replace my old three-disk 2GB 8GB 160GB configuration with my single 500GB originally, I just partitioned the new drive and copied data and then rebooted with it and changed the drive letters back as appropriate.
    I was trying to dereference Null Pointers before it was cool.

    dud_pod

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      Re: Max. HDDs on 400W SMPS
      « Reply #2 on: March 24, 2009, 04:06:43 AM »
      thanks for the tip

      fyi - i have 2x1gig RAM - occupying both slots and no external graphics accelerator card (My processor provides 280 meg of graphics, I think.) - no problemo ?

      appreciate the suggestion to rename the drive letters and copy the data from the old IDE disks and go on with life. - i can then remove the old IDE 80 gigs and use them as backup


      thanks a lot