The Biannual-Out: Beware of Bill Aims! :O

[deadlegion]

If you don't mind using a couple of sub 1TB drives keep an eye out for old laptops, set top boxes and DVD recorders people throw out. Many of the last two examples don't have easy access to the HDD (you have to pull the entire unit apart, and some use security screws), even some laptops don't have an access panel to swap out the HDD.

I've got a pile of sata drives here that cost nothing, laptop and desktop types. You'd be surprised how easy it is to come across 500GB size, and quite a few of them are WD or Seagate.

[Slacker Magician]

I was thinking about it last night but I wasn't sure if you could hook up a laptop sata to a desktop. I also thought about the possibility of putting it in an external case and using as an external hdd for storage.

Nothing stopping you. I wouldn't use one as anything but storage though.

[Zaladane]

I was thinking about it last night but I wasn't sure if you could hook up a laptop sata to a desktop. I also thought about the possibility of putting it in an external case and using as an external hdd for storage.

Sure you can!

Nothing stopping you. I wouldn't use one as anything but storage though.

As a temporary solution it's fine. I imagine they're probably not as good as even a low end standard desktop one though. But it's enough to get his PC going to start and can add later and just clone the drive or start fresh.

[Zaladane]

Also you guys gotta change your names back. I keep mixing you up

[Slacker Magician]

Sure you can!

As a temporary solution it's fine. I imagine they're probably not as good as even a low end standard desktop one though. But it's enough to get his PC going to start and can add later and just clone the drive or start fresh.

Since he said something about not liking how a previous build turned out I don't think piece by piece is a good plan for him .

[Slacker Magician]

Also you guys gotta change your names back. I keep mixing you up

I've been riding out my name change contest to contest .

[Grouch]

Since he said something about not liking how a previous build turned out I don't think piece by piece is a good plan for him .

to be fair my last build was back in 07 or 08 and it was mostly pieced together with old parts and some new ones like board cpu gfx. it was a mess the case had piss poor cable management the board I bought had the cpu slot in an akward place so the cooling fan was partially blocked by the psu the case had now place for a fan so the only fan was the exhaust fan on the psu there was only 1 place to install an hdd but 3 spaces for cd/dvd drives and 2 spaces for floppy drives.
if I remember right the board didn't even have a vga port I had to use my gfx card.

[deadlegion]

Floppy drive bays are HDD bays

[Grouch]

Floppy drive bays are HDD bays

I wonder how many people even know what those are anymore

[deadlegion]

I found an external floppy at work recently. Serial port type.
Guys at work had no idea what it was

[Grouch]

I should have edited that post the problem was my psu only had 3 ide connectors and two were on a Y which didn't have enough length to allow me to put an hdd in one of the unused bays.

[Slacker Magician]

to be fair my last build was back in 07 or 08 and it was mostly pieced together with old parts and some new ones like board cpu gfx. it was a mess the case had piss poor cable management the board I bought had the cpu slot in an akward place so the cooling fan was partially blocked by the psu the case had now place for a fan so the only fan was the exhaust fan on the psu there was only 1 place to install an hdd but 3 spaces for cd/dvd drives and 2 spaces for floppy drives.
if I remember right the board didn't even have a vga port I had to use my gfx card.

Sounds like a mess indeed . You want to use the GPU outputs anyway so no loss there.

I still wouldn't advise buying in advance. It locks you into a build sooner or later.

[Grouch]

I found an external floppy at work recently. Serial port type.
Guys at work had no idea what it was

you really find some crazy stuff

[deadlegion]

you really find some crazy stuff

^ Found 2 copies of that.

[Gypsy]

WTF