WD 1TB to 2TB, old system, WinXP, no internet ?

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SkaarjMaster

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My SkaarjMasterDuo system is almost 14 years old and I think the only thing I did was change video card and sound card this whole time. I have two 1TB WD Black Desktop HDs (one is backup only) in there and would like to upgrade to 2TB WD Black HDs if it is even worth it. I'm running out of room for my music on this old WinXP system, but want to keep it running. Below is what I have and what I'm thinking about getting to replace them.

Presently: two 1TB Desktop WD1001FALS-00J7B0 HDs (3.5 in, 7200 rpm, SATA 2.0-3GB/s, 32MB cache)
Replace with: two 2TB Desktop WD2003FZEX (or similar) (3.5 in, 7200 rpm, SATA 3.0-6GB/s, 64MB cache)

Questions:
1. Is it really worth the risk if everything is running good and I still have a little room for a while?
2. Is it possible to switch out the HDs without problems?
3. Are there other WD Black models to consider?
4. Is it better to order directly from WD?

Thank you.
 
I mean, if you're buying something new you could pick up SSDs and dramatically improve the system, even one that old. Unless you just love that super-slow-HDD noise and performance. Plus, generally speaking SSDs are going to be more reliable - no spinning metal or bearings to wear out, heads to crash into, etc.
 
sinisterDei said:
I mean, if you're buying something new you could pick up SSDs and dramatically improve the system, even one that old. Unless you just love that super-slow-HDD noise and performance. Plus, generally speaking SSDs are going to be more reliable - no spinning metal or bearings to wear out, heads to crash into, etc.
Click to expand...

Music won't benefit from the speed increases of an SSD, and using a SSD on XP also involves aligning the partition to 4k clusters, which the OP might not want to muck with seeing as how they're worried about the mere risk of swapping out a hard drive.
 
Yes, only HDD for this system. Just haven't built or messed with a desktop in a while and I don't want to screw things up; I have helped a couple people since this one, but not in the biz. I don't hear any strange noises from any of the parts, but I'm figuring the hard drives might be the first to go, so get new ones and maybe I can keep it going for a while. Just hoping I'm as lucky or as close to lucky with the two new ones.

EDIT: just for the record, those last two systems in my sig are still together but haven't been turned on in a while but still could be one day.;)
 
3. what other WD Black models would you like me to consider?
4. so much for ordering from WD, only one internal HDD selling and it's red, yes only one of type I'm looking for.............this is not the hard drive you're looking for...;)
Thank you.
 
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I don't know if you're stuck on WD for any particular reason, but you can consider the Seagate ST2000DX002 if you like. It's one of their SSHD hybrid drives and offers some minor speed benefits thanks to the hybrid design combined with still being a 7200 RPM model, while still being a standard hard drive from the perspective of the OS.

Whatever you buy, try to avoid SMR drives especially at your low capacity point that you are looking at. The WD Red WD20EFAX is 5400 RPM and SMR for its baseline tech.
 
Stuck on WD Black, so I'm guessing that alone avoids SMR? These two I have now have lasted almost 14 years (next month), so....
 
Correct, WD Black WD2003FZEX is CMR, so you've got that going for you if you stick with the WD. 14 years is a good run for sure, but I don't (personally) buy into brand loyalty for basically anything, especially over the timescale that you're discussing. Basically as I see it, 14 years is good luck for you, not something I specifically give WD credit for (or anyone else for their tech lasting very long like that) because they certainly didn't design the drives with 14 years of reliability in mind; they just did the best they could with the tech and tools they had, finding the nexus between effort, expense, expediency, and results.
 
Probably is luck of the draw, but I have never had a WD crash on me and I've had Seagates crash and make a lot of noise. OK, so looks like I got my answers for 1, 3 and 4, so now I'm focusing on 2. Do I take out my backup 1TB and format/partition both new 2TB there one at a time or should I start a different way?
 
So age of the OS is a bit of a problem; if this was Windows 7 or whatever, I'd say just install the new drive and use Macrium Reflect to clone the disk. If you can lay you hands on an ancient version of something like Reflect you can probably do it from within Windows XP.

Alternatively, you could get a dual-3.5" USB dock and plug it into your more modern Windows 10 system, slap one of the old drives and one of the new drives into it, and then use Reflect. Or you could install everything into the old masterduo system and use a modern boot-time partition cloning utility, that I presume wouldn't have a problem with your older hardware.
 
You do have backups, right? If not, I'd back up your important data before messing with anything. Often, systems this old don't like to be touched. (Literally; you can expose solder joints or connectors going bad from oxidation, etc.)
 
Definitely will backup everything before I do this. Also, I'm fairly certain I didn't need anything special for XP to recognize the drive and partition it, so that part should be easy. I believe I used an old version of DriveCopy to "clone" the C: drive.

Something else to consider is a get a lot of acrobat errors, but I just click OK and move on; not enough to warrant reinstall (God forbid) or scrapping system. Also, every now and then in WinExplorer, I get a temporary Explorer.exe problem; but never enough to do something about. Yes, it is the original install from March 2009. If you think I could really screw something up by trying to upgrade the hard drives, then maybe my best bet would be to just get external HDs for extra space; I already use one as a second backup (direct files and not Active Disk Image). What do you guys think? Thank you.
 
SkaarjMaster said:
Definitely will backup everything before I do this. Also, I'm fairly certain I didn't need anything special for XP to recognize the drive and partition it, so that part should be easy. I believe I used an old version of DriveCopy to "clone" the C: drive.

Something else to consider is a get a lot of acrobat errors, but I just click OK and move on; not enough to warrant reinstall (God forbid) or scrapping system. Also, every now and then in WinExplorer, I get a temporary Explorer.exe problem; but never enough to do something about. Yes, it is the original install from March 2009. If you think I could really screw something up by trying to upgrade the hard drives, then maybe my best bet would be to just get external HDs for extra space; I already use one as a second backup (direct files and not Active Disk Image). What do you guys think? Thank you.
Click to expand...

I'd go for an internal drive personally. If you're careful I doubt you'll mess anything up. Make sure not to spill a beer inside the PC while working on it, and wear an anti static wrist strap or touch some grounded metal before you start.
 
I haven't used DriveCopy personally, but most drive cloning software is able to operate with a fully blank drive. You'll want that because it also needs to clone the boot sector, not just the partitions and such. Once the drive is copied you can extend the partition to use the remaining space on the drive.
 
Hopefully, my old version of Active Disk Image won't have any trouble recognizing the new drives. I'm not stuck on DriveCopy, so I'll consider Macrium Reflect also. I should be ordering drives in a week or two and then I'll have to pick a slightly slower time for work to do it. Thank you everyone so far.:)
 
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