2nd Hard Drive advice please

[#1]

Hi, i have a HP A1629 Pavillion Computer and would like to fit second internal hard drive, I have a second External drive which is USB and very slow compared to an internal drive, I would be getting rid of the USB one and also removing the floppy drive I have that was fitted when I first got the computer about a year ago.
I have a Radeon X1550 Series PCie Graphics card in and apart from the things I've mentioned it is bog standard with a 300w psu.
Bearing in mind I will be removing the floppy and the USB external  Drive would I have to fit a more powerful power unit, the hard drive that is in my computer is a Samsung SATA 200gb drive and would like to fit roughly same for back up and so on, I cant find anywhere what the power draw would be for a drive like that, I've been used to in the past having two drives and thought the USB external drive would suffice but as I say its slow.
I was told to think about upgrading the Power unit but thought I'd ask just to make sure, the one I have in is very quite and would hate to end up with a noisy one and there is the cost aspect as well.
hope someone can advise and would be much appreciated
jono

[#2]

Hello jono,
I don't think I would worry too much.  I have run two or three drives on a 300 watt power supply in the past.  And, as you say, you will be removing the external drive, so that will save on the power drain.
Best wishes,
Peter

[#3]

There should be no problem and removing the floppy will make no difference its so rarely used. The answer is simple suck it and see if its ok then you have saved money if the PSU gives up the ghost than you can get a new one.

The other answer is not to fit another 200gig but buy a 500gig so then you only need the one drive  and you can partition it into 2 drives so baring a total disk failure you will have a backup. As disk often come with a 3 year guarantee its rare for them to go.
A new big drive  would by quicker than the old drive as well and a 500gig is only about £70 if its sata a 200 gig isnt that much cheaper. 

[#4]

Agree with both Peter and Samuria (this must be a first!!) No need to replace the power unit (who suggested it? not a salesman by chance?) If it ain't broke, don't try and fix it...And personally I'd go down the bigger single drive route. And oh yeah, leave the floppy where it is, if it's not in the way, you just never know when it might be useful, it's very unlikely to effect your PC's performance, you shouldn't need to remove it to fit a second HDD anyway, most HDD mounting boxes usually have room for a second drive (if thats what you choose to do)

[#5]

Hi Thanks, I posted on the HP web site at first with it being a HP computer and then thought I would post on here and get a second opinion, I always have had a second drive in my old computers and never fitted a PSU but then they were 400watt units, and then  run My docs and other important stuff on the second one then if the Op system decides to chuck a wobbly it does not affect my important files.
There is no spare room for the second drive but I'm going to remove the floppy and install there.
thanks for all the help
regards
jono

[#6]

As a matter of interest, you don't need to fit an HDD to anything inside the case. Back in the days when drives were relatively "small" I often had up to 4 drives (using a RAID board) at least one just lay on the "floor" of the case, another was mounted on it's edge after drilling 2 holes through the case "floor" for the mounting screws (taking considerable care about possible swarf from the drillings getting into the PC's electronics)  The biggest problem is sometimes getting the flat connecting cables to twist through some contortions, but by carefully splitting the "ribbon" into individual leads around the bends they can be made to twist quite easily. After all having loose drives inside a static box is hardly problem.
PS. I never had a power supply problem using up to 4xHDD, CD player, CDRW (separate drives ((no DVD in those days)) floppy, and usually all of the 6 available PCI slots filled plus AGP graphics, they're not all in use at the same time. I admit they could get pretty warm, but I was careful about keeping the fan clear of dust etc. And fitted an extra fan (far cheaper than a new power unit)

[#7]

Just as a thought. Not all 300w power supplies are the same.
If it's a decent quality unit...fine. But if it's not
As Samuria said suck it and see.
I've also had drives lying on the bottom of pc's

[#8]

Hi, Yes I think its a decent one, its a HP PSU so I expect it to be, its very quite and its the quietest one I've had.
thanks for all the help
jono

[#9]

As someone with currently 2 HP computers, I can't in all conscience 100% subscribe to HP = quality But they're probably no worse than most mass producers, They do have a reputation (of sorts) to look after.

[#10]

Quote from: Strat

I've also had drives lying on the bottom of pc's

Reminds me of the time with my first PC.
I stuck a second drive to the bottom of the case with Velcro once. Might sound silly, but once it was stuck it wasn't going nowhere

[#11]

...and it wasn't going anywhere either

[#12]

Less vibration if you just leave them hanging on the end of a wire perhaps?

[#13]

Being careful not to go too far off-topic. I recall my first ever "proper grown-up" PC (after Sinclairs and Commodore's etc.) it was based on a Pentium 75 processor, mounted on a no-name motherboard, the whole being mounted on a small sheet of chipboard not in a case at all. Think it had a 125Mb HDD and 250Mb RAM Win3.1 rapidly replaced with the ground breaking Win 95. All very Heath Robinson, but it worked Ok (by the standards of the day) sometimes for two consecutive hours in a row!!
Ah those were the day's...and other meaningless nostalgia spouted by silver surfers.

[#14]

Ive still got a working UK 101, mind you I cant remember how to use it let alone update it

[#15]

Quote from: Alex

Reminds me of the time with my first PC. I stuck a second drive to the bottom of the case with Velcro once. Might sound silly, but once it was stuck it wasn't going nowhere

On my first PC I stuck a second drive to the first drive (upside down) with velcro - so I had back-to-back drives! 
That was a 486 SX (4 MB of memory) - that's not a misprint!