Best IDE hard drive for 10-year-old desktop: Dell Dimension 8250?

Question

I have a 10-year-old Dell Dimension 8250. I want to replace the original hard drive with a bigger one, say 160GB or 250GB.  OEM hard drives for the 8250 are available on eBay for about £30, but I'd like to fit a drive that's a bit more advanced, say with a higher buffer memory of 32MB or more.  What would be a good IDE hard drive for the 8250?  Ideally, I'd like it to slot in with the minimum of fuss.  According to the manual, the internal drive bays are for 1 inch high hard drives.

Even Furries need love · Accepted Answer

OK so first off I would compare prices.
Not just HDs but also simply the cost of replacing the rest of the hardware.
or even adding an internal card, probably PCI (orgininal, not PCI express, though if you have that, then why not use it) with SATA ports to it and get the biggest baddest SATA HD out there (within the limitations of your OS, 32bit can recognize and used HDs over 2TB if done properly, 64 bit no problems).

Realistically, if you want to stay with a PATA HD (an IDE) then it doesn't matter much what I can find out here but what's actually available to you in your geographical market area. Since the websites I use for computer parts deal only in new parts, I have very little idea about 10 year old hardware.

IrishVT · Answer

For a 10 year old desktop, I'd suggest just going with the cheapest one you can find with the storage you want.  Why spend more than you have to on such an outdated machine?

? · Answer

I in simple terms checked and you would be waiting to apply tremendously plenty any new IDEpersistent. reckoning on the ribbon cable you're employing that is going from the hardpersistent to the motherboard you would be working at ATA-one hundred or ATA-133 or maybe the previous ATA-33 (40 pin ribbon cable). /-/ound...

Best IDE hard drive for 10-year-old desktop: Dell Dimension 8250?

3 Answers