Cheap Computers and Parts

Notes we've taken concerning the Hard Drive

• Hard Drive Interface(s): SATA 3.0Gb/s, PATA
• # of Available SATA Connections: 4
• # of Available PATA Connections: 1

Step 1: Finding a Hard Disk Drive

Finding a Hard Drive for a budget PC is easier than finding RAM. On our motherboard notes, we wrote down SATA 3.0Gb/s and PATA interface connections. We could use our PATA (IDE) connection but this interface is an older and slower technology. Plus, you may want to save your IDE connection for an older hard drive you want to install, if you have one. Let's search for SATA Hard Disk Drives:

Computer Hardware List --> Hard Drives --> Internal Hard Drives --> Serial ATA 3.0GB/s (if on list) -->

-Order by "lowest price"

We recommend looking for a hard drive somewhere between 80GB - 120GB. If you don't plan on putting a lot of software on your hard drive, you can shoot for a smaller drive but you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot by getting one that's too small. We could get an 80GB hard drive but for less than $10 more, we can get one that's twice the size. It's up to you.

Here's what we found:

Western Digital Caviar 80GB SATA 3.0GB/s Hard Disk Drive - $34.99

This drive has great reviews, it's cheap and it's exactly what we are looking for.

Notes to take before the next lesson:

In this lesson, we found an 80GB SATA Hard Disk Drive. This will take up one of our SATA connections and we will need a power connection from our PSU.

• # of Available SATA Connections Remaining: 3
• # of Available PATA Connections Remaining: 1
• # of SATA power connections needed: 1

Next Lesson:

Let's continue to the next lesson: Lesson 11: How to Find a Cheap CD/DVD-ROM.