Member Avatar for ep2002

Hi everyone,

How's it going?

I have to purchase a new HD that will allow me to upgrade with it in the future, potentially to a 64 bit system. I need to know the following:

1. Which is the best one to get?

2. Which one has the best disk copying software?

3. Can one manufacturers disk copying software be used on another manufacturers HD?

Thanks so much & have a great day!


Michelle

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by goldeagle2005

Dani AI

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Short summary: asked about buying a drive with future 64‑bit upgrades in mind. and covered manufacturers and connector choices; below are technical, practical points they did not mention and steps that apply regardless of brand.

Pick by use case, not by name. For snappy OS/apps, a solid‑state drive (especially a PCIe/NVMe model if the motherboard supports it) gives the biggest real‑world speed gain. For bulk storage where cost per gigabyte matters, a high‑capacity mechanical drive is still the right call. Check endurance (TBW for SSDs), warranty period, and whether the drive uses 4K sectors/advanced format—those affect cloning and alignment.

Disk copying: use a purpose-built imaging/cloning tool rather than assuming any bundled utility will do everything. Open, reliable options include Clonezilla (free) and several commercial tools that handle resizing partitions and restoring boot loaders. Clonezilla: https://clonezilla.org/

Compatibility and gotchas. Most cloning software works across manufacturers because it copies partitions or blocks, but watch for:

  • Boot scheme: MBR vs GPT and BIOS vs UEFI (GPT is required for booting from drives larger than 2 TB in many setups). See GUID Partition Table: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table
  • Sector-size differences (512e vs 4K) and alignment—misalignment hurts performance on SSDs and advanced-format HDDs.
  • Driver/controller changes—cloning a Windows system to different controllers can require injecting drivers or repairing the boot process.
  • SSD-specific tasks (secure erase, firmware updates) often need vendor tools.

Practical checklist: full backup before cloning; use a trusted cloning tool; clone and then test‑boot the new drive before wiping the old one; convert to GPT/UEFI if you need >2 TB bootable space; verify S.M.A.R.T. and run a file system check after cloning.

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Member Avatar for chrisbliss18
  • Which is the best one to get?
    Everyone has different opinions on this one. The top three are Maxtor, Western Digital, and Seagate. My preference is for Seagate. Seagate drives seem to be quieter than the other two IMO. Seagate also offers very good warrenty support on their drives.
  • 2. Which one has the best disk copying software?
    The disk that comes with Seagate drives (if you get the retail version that is) has software that will allow you to copy your old disk's data to the new disk. I have never used this on any system, so I don't know if it works properly all the time.

    Since I don't buy drives by other manufacturers, I can't comment on the features that they offer.

  • 3. Can one manufacturers disk copying software be used on another manufacturers HD?
    It's possible, but I wouldn't recommend it.
Member Avatar for goldeagle2005

In addition to chrissbliss' response, I'd suggest you go for a SATA hard drive(preferably SATA2) as SATA performance is much better than IDE. Also, SATA cables being smaller, there's more room for air flow and ventilation. SATA also has no jumpers that need to be set.

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