I have a HP Pavilion a450n that I bought a few years ago, and I have updated several things on it on my own...with the help of Hatrack, of course.
From what I can find, my computer uses an IDE hard drive type called an ATA drive. I know there are several newer types of drives, such as SATA, but I don't know the difference between them.
It all depends on the type of motherboard you have, doesn't it? I don't think I can upgrade to a SATA drive....it would probably be easier and cheaper to just buy a new computer all together.
What are the limitations of my computer as far as upgrading the memory? I have 1G or RAM now, and I only have two slots, so my max as it stands now seems to be 2G....I am still using XP, not Vista, so I think I will stick at 1G for now....and I bought another 160 internal HD a while back, so I should be set...I still have over 86G free (out of a total of 320G between the two drives), so my question is more about learning in general rather than any specific upgrade I am looking at now.
Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
The difference is primarily in the speed at which data can be read from the drive. Most operations, though, see almost no tangible benefit from the increased read speed. It means faster load times when accessing especially large files, or faster response if a file that needs to be accessed is too large for your system's memory. You'll notice the difference in tasks like video editing.
Physically, SATA cables are much smaller, easier to manage and easier to plug in and unplug.