This is a tag-along to my earlier post, found here, about upgrading my parents office computers from windows XP to windows 7 (32-bit).
Details are directly below, and a TL;DR version can be found at the bottom.
The Scoop:
In their two computers (Identical hardware), they have Seagate Barracuda HDDs (320GB). For Windows7, a clean install is needed, so my plan is to add an additional HDD, (since the ones already in there are ~7 years old, and are used heavily, and will probably break sometime soon). Enter, stage right, question number one;
1. Can someone suggest a good HDD (sata2, 3gb/s) that has a capacity between 320 and 400 GBs? Is it a reasonable price, and can you provide a link (Amazon is preferred)?
I went poking around inside their computers earlier today, and found that, aside from them not being cleaned since they were built (easily deduced from the spider webs between the harddrive cage and the PSU motherboard cable. Real WebCrawlers! Who knew?!), the guy who put them together used two sticks of Corsair XMS2 512-MB (800 MHz) per unit. Enter stage left, questions two and three.
2. Why would someone use two sticks of .5GB, instead of a single stick of 1GB, and
3. How careful do I need to be if I'm scrapping the current modules and replacing them with a single stick of 2GB? Will I be okay as long as the timings and speeds are similar?
Thanks for reading the really long and boring version. I want to make sure that there's a 0 chance that I can screw up my parents' livelihood, as I'd be grounded until I'm 40, and I'd probably ruin my dad's law firm.
TL;DR:
--- Question summary ---
1. Decent Sata2, 3GB/s HDD, between 320 and 400 GBs? Link (Amazon preferred)?
2. Why would someone use two sticks of .5 GB instead of one stick of 1GB?
3. How badly can I screw up their computers if I get RAM that's too fast? Too slow?
Details are directly below, and a TL;DR version can be found at the bottom.
The Scoop:
In their two computers (Identical hardware), they have Seagate Barracuda HDDs (320GB). For Windows7, a clean install is needed, so my plan is to add an additional HDD, (since the ones already in there are ~7 years old, and are used heavily, and will probably break sometime soon). Enter, stage right, question number one;
1. Can someone suggest a good HDD (sata2, 3gb/s) that has a capacity between 320 and 400 GBs? Is it a reasonable price, and can you provide a link (Amazon is preferred)?
I went poking around inside their computers earlier today, and found that, aside from them not being cleaned since they were built (easily deduced from the spider webs between the harddrive cage and the PSU motherboard cable. Real WebCrawlers! Who knew?!), the guy who put them together used two sticks of Corsair XMS2 512-MB (800 MHz) per unit. Enter stage left, questions two and three.
2. Why would someone use two sticks of .5GB, instead of a single stick of 1GB, and
3. How careful do I need to be if I'm scrapping the current modules and replacing them with a single stick of 2GB? Will I be okay as long as the timings and speeds are similar?
Thanks for reading the really long and boring version. I want to make sure that there's a 0 chance that I can screw up my parents' livelihood, as I'd be grounded until I'm 40, and I'd probably ruin my dad's law firm.
TL;DR:
--- Question summary ---
1. Decent Sata2, 3GB/s HDD, between 320 and 400 GBs? Link (Amazon preferred)?
2. Why would someone use two sticks of .5 GB instead of one stick of 1GB?
3. How badly can I screw up their computers if I get RAM that's too fast? Too slow?